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THE STORY OF THE 
PULLMAN CAR 



/* 




GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 
1831— 1897 



The Story of the 
Pullman Car 



BY 

JOSEPH HUSBAND 

Author of " America at Work " and " A Year in a 
Coal-Mine." 



ILLUSTRATED 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1917 






Copyright 

A. C. McCLUEG & CO. 

1917 



Published May, 1917 



l> 




W, F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO 

MAY 17 1917 

©CLA460907 



To 
dleorge JHortimer ^uUman 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

OF THE many books from which infor- 
mation was drawn for the preparation 
of this volume the author wishes to make 
particular acknowledgment to T'he Modern 
Railroad, by Mr. Edward Hungerford, to 
the article " Railway Passenger Travel," by 
Mr. Elorace Porter, published in Scribner's 
Magazine, September, 1888; and to Contem- 
porary American Biography, as well as to the 
many newspapers and magazines from whose 
files information and extracts have been freely 
drawn. J. H. 

Chicago, April, 1917 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I The Birth of Railroad Transportation . . i 

II The Evolution of the Sleeping Car ... 19 

III The Rise of a Great Industry 39 

IV The Pullman Car in Europe 61 

V The Survival of the Fittest y^i 

VI The Town of Pullman 89 

VII Inventions and Improvements 99 

VIII How the Cars are Made 123 

IX The Operation of the Pullman Car . . . 133 

Index 159 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

George Mortimer Pullman Frontispiece 

One of the earliest types of American passenger car . 8 
First locomotive built for actual service in America . 9 

Early passenger cars 11 

American " Bogie " car in use in 1835 . . . .12 

Cars and locomotive of 1845 ^4 

Car in use in 1844 20 

Car of 1831 21 

Midnight in the old coaches 23 

" Convenience of the new sleeping cars " . . . .24 

Early type of sleeping car 28 

J. L. Barnes, first Pullman car conductor .... 32 
One of the first cars built by George M. Pullman . . 42 

The car in the daytime 42 

Making up the berths 42 

George M. Pullman explaining details of car construction 46 
One of the first Pullman cars in which meals were served 52 

The first parlor car, 1875 58 

Interior of Pullman car of 1880 64 

The rococo period car 68 

More ornate interiors 74 

The latest Pullman parlor car . 76 

First step in building the car 84, 

Fitting the car for steam and electricity .... 90 
Work on steel plates for inside panels . . . .90 
Preparing the steel frame for an upper section ... 94 

Sand blasting brass trimmings 94 

Machine section, steel erecting shop 100 

Fitting up the steel car underframe 100 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Making cushions for the seats 104 

Making chairs for parlor cars 104 

Making frame end posts 106 

Assembling steel car partitions 106 

The vestibule in its earliest form 108 

Axle generator for electric lighting . . , . . .110 
The sewing room, upholstering department . . . .114 

Forming steel parts for interior finish 118 

Forming steel shapes for interior framing . . . .118 

Punching holes for screws 124 

Shaping steel panelling 124 

Riveting the underframe 126 

Steel end posts in position 126 

Type of early truck 128 

Modern cast-steel truck 128 

Ready for the interior fittings 130 

Interior work 130 

Pullman sleeping car, latest design 134 

Front end of a private car dining room .... 136 

Rear end of a private car dining room 136 

Robert T. Lincoln, ex-President 138 

Bedroom of a private car 142 

Observation section of a private car 142 

Modern Pullman steel sleeping car ready for the night . 146 
Modern Pullman steel sleeping car during the day . . 146 
Cleaning and disinfecting the Pullman car .... 152 
John S. Runnells, President 156 



I 

The Birth of Railroad Transportation 



THE STORY OF THE 
PULLMAN CAR 



CHAPTER I 

THE BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

INCE those distant days when man's migratory 
instinct first prompted him to find fresh hunt- 
ing fields and seek new caves in other lands, 
human energy has been constantly employed in 
moving from place to place. The fear of starvation 
and other elementary causes prompted the earliest 
migrations. Conquest followed, and with increas- 
ing civilization came the establishment of constant 
intercourse between distant places for reasons that 
found existence in military necessity and commer- 
cial activity. 

For centuries the sea offered the easiest highway, 
and the fleets of Greece and Rome carried the cul- 
ture and commerce of the day to relatively great 
distances. Then followed the natural development 
of land communication, and at once arose the neces- 

[I] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

sity not only for vehicles of transportation but for 
suitable roads over which they might pass with com- 
fort, speed, and safety. Over the Roman roads the 
commerce of a great empire flowed in a tumultuous 
stream. Wheeled vehicles rumbled along the 
highways — heavy springless carts to carry the mer- 
chandise, lightly rolling carriages for the comfort of 
wealthy travelers. 

The elementary principle still remains. The 
wheel and the paved way of Roman days correspond 
to the four-tracked route of level rails and the pon- 
derous steel wheels of the mighty Mogul of today. 
In speed, scope, capacity, and comfort has the 
change been wrought. 

The English stagecoach marked a sharp advance 
in the progress of passenger transportation. With 
frequent relays of fast horses a fair rate of speed 
was maintained, and comfort was to a degree effected 
by suspension springs of leather and by interior 
upholstery. 

An interesting example of the height of luxury 
achieved by coach builders was the field carriage of 
the great Napoleon, which he used in the campaign 
of 1815. This carriage was captured by the English 

[2] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

at Waterloo, and suffered the ignominious fate of 
being later exhibited in Madame Tussaud's wax- 
work show in London. The coach was a model of 
''compactness, and contained a bedstead of solid steel 
so arranged that the occupant's feet rested in a box 
projecting beyond the front of the vehicle. Over the 
front windows was a roller blind, which, when 
pulled down admitted the air but excluded rain. 
The secretaire was fitted up for Napoleon by Marie 
Louise, with nearly a hundred articles, including a 
magnificent breakfast service of gold, a writing desk, 
perfumes, and spirit lamp. In a recess at the bottom 
of the toilet box were two thousand gold napoleons, 
and on the top of the box were places for the 
imperial wardrobe, maps, telescopes, arms, liquor 
case, and a large silver chronometer by which the 
watches of the army were regulated. In such 
quarters did the great emperor jolt along over the 
execrable roads of Eastern Europe. 

The stagecoach was established in England as a 
public conveyance early in the sixteenth century, 
and soon regular routes were developed throughout 
the country. Now for the first time a closed vehicle 
afforded travelers comparative comfort during their 

I3] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

journey, and in the stagecoach with its definite 
schedule may be seen the early prototype of the mod- 
ern passenger railroad. For three centuries the 
stagecoach slowly developed, and its popularity car- 
ried it to the continent and later to America. But 
by a radical invention transportation was suddenly 
transformed. 

As early as the middle of the sixteenth century, 
and actually contemporaneous with the inception of 
the stagecoach, railways, or wagon-ways, had their 
origin. At first these primitive railways were built 
exclusively to serve the mining districts of England 
and consisted of wooden rails over which horse- 
drawn wagons might be moved with greater ease 
than over the rough and rutted roads. 

The next step forward was brought about by the 
natural wear of the wheels on the wooden tracks, 
and consisted of a method of sheathing the rails with 
thin strips of iron. To avoid the buckling which 
soon proved a fault of this innovation, the first actual 
iron rails were cast in 1767 by the Colebrookdale 
Iron Works. These rails were about three feet in 
length and were flanged to keep the wagon wheels 
on the track. 

[4] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

For a number of years this simple type of railroad 
existed with little change. Over it freight alone 
was carried, and its natural limitations and high 
cost, compared with the transportation afforded by 
canals, seemed to hold but little promise for future 
expansion. 

As early as 1804 Richard Trevi thick had experi- 
mented with a steam locomotive, and in the ten 
years following other daring spirits endeavored to 
devise a practical application of the steam engine to 
the railway problem. But in 1814 George Stephen- 
son's engine, the "Blucher," actually drew a train of 
eight loaded wagons, a total weight of thirty tons, 
at a speed of four miles an hour, and the age of the 
steam railroad had begun. 

The first railroad to adopt steam as its motive 
power was the Stockton & Darlington, a "system" 
comprising three branches and a total of thirty-eight 
miles of track. On the advice of Stephenson, horse 
power was not adopted and several steam engines 
were built to afford the motive power. This road 
was opened on September 27, 1825, and preceded 
by a signalman on horseback a train of thirty-four 
vehicles weighing about ninety tons departed from 

[5] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

the terminus with the applause of the amazed spec- 
tators. 

The novelty of this new venture soon appealed 
so strongly to popular fancy that a month later a 
passenger coach was added, and a daily schedule 
between Stockton & Darlington was inaugurated. 

This first railway carriage for the transportation 
of passengers was aptly named the " Experiment." 
Consisting of the body of a stagecoach it accommo- 
dated approximately twenty-five passengers, of 
which number six found accommodations within, 
while the others perched on the exterior and the 
roof of the vehicle. The fare for the trip was one 
shilling, and each passenger was permitted to carry 
fourteen pounds of baggage. 

This early adaption of the stagecoach to the 
rapidly developed demand for passenger service 
necessitated the coinage of a new terminology, and 
^ it is not surprising that many words of stagecoach 
days remained. Among these "coach" is still pre- 
served, and in England the engineer is still called 
the "driver" ; the conductor, "guard" ; locomotive 
attendants in the roundhouse, "hostlers," and the 
roundhouse tracks the "stalls." 

[6] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

In 1829 a prize of five hundred pounds ($2,500) 
for the best engine was offered by the directors of 
the Liverpool & Manchester Railway which was 
to be opened in the following year, and at the trial 
which was held in October three locomotives con- 
structed on new and high-speed principles were 
entered. These were the "Rocket" by George and 
Robert Stephenson, the "Novelty" by John Braith- 
waite and John Erickson, and the "Sanspareil" 
by Timothy Hackworth. Due to the failure of 
the "Novelty" and the "Sanspareil" to complete 
the trial run and the successful performance of the 
"Rocket" in meeting the terms of the competition, 
the Stephensons were awarded the prize and received 
an order for seven additional locomotives. It is 
interesting to learn that on its initial trip the 
"Rocket" attained the unprecedented speed of 
twenty-five miles an hour. 

In 1819 Benjamin Dearborn, of Boston, memo- 
rialized Congress in regard to " a mode of propelling 
wheel-carriages" for "conveying mail and passen- 
gers with such celerity as has never before been 
accomplished, and with complete security from rob- 
bery on the highway," by "carriages propelled by 

[7] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

steam on level railroads, furnished with accommoda- 
tions for passengers to take their meals and rest 
during the passage, as in packet; and that they be 
sufficiently high for persons to walk in without 
stooping." Congress, however, failed to call this 




One of the earliest types of an American passenger car, 
drawn by Peter Cooper's experimental locomotive, "Tom Thumb." 
The tubular boilers of the locomotive were made from gun barrels. 

memorial from the committee to which it was 
referred. 

The development of the locomotive in America 
approximates its development in England. As early 
as 1827 four miles of track were laid between 
Quincy and Boston for the transportation of granite 
for the Bunker Hill Monument. Horses furnished 

[8] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 



the power, and the cars were drawn over wooden 
rails fastened to stone sleepers. 

But reports of the wonders of the new English 
railways soon crossed the water, and in 1828 Horatio 
Allen was commissioned by the Delaware & Hudson 
Canal Company to purchase four locomotives in 




" The BestFriend," the first locomotive built for actual service 
in America, hauling the first excursion train on the South Carolina 
Railroad, January 15, 1831. 

England for use on its new line from Carbondale to 
Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Of these locomotives 
three were constructed by Foster, Rastrick, and 
Company, of Stourbridge, and one by George 
Stephenson. The first engine to arrive was the 
"Stourbridge Lion" and on the ninth of August, 

[9] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

1829, it was placed on the primitive wooden rails 
and, to the amazement of the spectators, Allen 
opened the throttle and in a cloud of smoke and 
hissing steam moved down the track at the prodi- 
gious speed of ten miles an hour. 

One of the first railways in America was the old 
Mohawk & Hudson, which was chartered by an act 
of the New York legislature on April 17, 1826. The 
commissioners who were entrusted with the duty of 
organizing the company met for the purpose in the 
office of John Jacob Astor, in New York City, on 
July 29, 1826. One of their first official acts was to 
appoint Peter Heming chief engineer and send him 
to England to examine as to the feasibility of build- 
ing a railroad. - Mr. Heming's salary was fixed at 
$1,500 a year. In due course of time he returned 
from his European visit of observation and reported 
in favor of the project under consideration. Not- 
withstanding that he was absent six months, the 
expenses of his trip, charged by hffn to the company, 
were only $335.59. The road first used horse power 
and later on adopted steam for use in the day time, 
retaining horses, however, for night work. It was 
not deemed safe to use steam after dark. At first 

[10] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

the trains consisted of one car each, in construction 
closely resembling the old-fashioned stagecoach. 

The road connected the two towns of Albany and 
Schenectady, and was seventeen miles in length, 
but tiie portion operated by steam was only four- 
teen miles in length, horses being used on the 




Early passenger cars, designed after the then prevalent type of 
horse coach. These cars were part of the train that ran on the for- 
mal opening of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad (the first link of 
the New York Central System) on July 5, 1831: 

inclined plane division from the top of one hill to 
the top of another. 

Three years later a prize of $4,000 was offered 
by the Baltimore & Ohio Company for an American 
engine, and the following year a locomotive con- 
structed by Davis and Gastner won the award by 
drawing fifteen tons at the rate of fifteen miles an 
hour. In 1832, Matthias W. Baldwin, founder of 

[II] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, 
designed his first locomotive, "Old Ironsides," for 
the Philadelphia, Germantown & Morristown Rail- 
road: and soon after his second locomotive, the "E. 




One of the first important improvements made by America in 
passenger cars was the introduction of the "bogie," or truck; the 
short curves of the American roads compelling the abandonment of 
the English type of four-wheeled car with rigid axles. The illustra- 
tion shows a "bogie" car used on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 
in 1835. 

L. Miller," was put in service on the South Carolina 
Railroad. 

The first passenger service to be put in regular 
operation in America must be credited to the Charles- 
ton & Hamburg Railroad in the late fall of 1830. 

[12] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

The following year construction was begun on the 
Boston & Lowell Railroad, and in the same year a 
passenger train, previously mentioned, was put in 
service between Albany and Schenectady on the new 
Mohawk & Hudson Railroad. 

The journal of Samuel Breck of Boston, affords 
an interesting glimpse of the conditions of contem- 
porary railroad travel: 

July 22, 1833. This morning at nine o'clock I took 
passage on a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. 
Five or six other cars were attached to the locomotive, 
and uglier boxes I do not wish to travel in. They were 
made to stow away some thirty human beings, who sit 
cheek by jowl as best they can. Two poor fellows who 
were not much in the habit of making their toilet, squeezed 
me into a corner, while the hot sun drew from their gar- 
ments a villainous compound of smells made up of salt 
fish, tar, and molasses. By and by just twelve — only 
twelve — bouncing factory girls were introduced, who 
were going on a party of pleasure to Newport. " Make 
room for the ladies!" bawled out the superintendent. 
"Come gentlemen, jump up on top; plenty of room 
there ! " " I'm afraid of the bridge knocking my brains 
out," said a passenger. Some made one excuse, and some 
another. For my part, I flatly told him that since I had 
belonged to the corps of Silver Grays I had lost my gal- 
lantry and did not intend to move. The whole twelve 
were, however, introduced, and soon made themselves at 

[13] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

home, sucking- lemons, and eating green apples. . . . 
The rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the 
polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern 
improvement in traveling .... and all this for the 
sake of doing very uncomfortably in two days what 
would be done delightfully in eight or ten. 

To follow further the rapid development of the 
railroad in America would require many volumes. 




Cars and locomotive in use on the Camden & Amboy Rail- 
road in 1845. The cars were heated by wood stoves, the glass sash 
was stationary, and ventilation was possible only from a wooden- 
panelled window which could be raised a few inches. 

As the canal building fever had seized the fancy of 
the American public in preceding years, so a similar 
enthusiasm was instantly kindled in the new rail- 
road, and railroad travel became immediately the 
most popular diversion. In a relatively few years 
a web of track carried the smoking locomotive and 
its rumbling train of cars throughout the country. 
Crude, and lacking almost every convenience of the 

[14] 



BIRTH OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION 

passenger coach of the present day, the early rail- 
way carriage served fully its new-born function. To 
the latter half of the century was reserved the 
development of those refinements which have ren- 
dered travel safe and comfortable, and the perfecting 
of those vast organizations that have placed in 
American hands the railroad supremacy of the world. 



T15] 



II 

The Evolution of the Sleeping Car 



CHAPTER II 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

THE history of improved railway travel may be 
said to date from the year 1836, when the 
first sleeping car was offered to the traveling public. 
In the years which followed the actual inception of 
the railroad in the United States, railway travel was 
fraught with discomfort and inconvenience beyond 
the realization of the present day. Travel by canal 
boat had at least offered a relative degree of com- 
fort, for here comfortable berths in airy cabins were 
provided as well as good meals and entertainment, 
but the locomotive, by its greatly increased speed 
over the plodding train of tow mules, instantly com- 
manded the situation, and as the mileage of the 
pioneer roads increased, travel by boat propor- 
tionately languished. 

The first passenger cars were little better than 
boxes mounted on wheels. Over the uneven track 
the locomotive dragged its string of little coaches, 
each smaller than the average street car of today. 

[19] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



From the engine a pall of suffocating smoke and 
glowing sparks swept back on the partially pro- 
tected passengers. Herded like cattle they settled 
themselves as comfortably as possible on the stiff- 
backed, narrow benches. The cars were narrow and 
scant head clearance was afforded by the low, flat 




Car in use in 1844 on the Michigan Central Railroad. In- 
teresting as showing the rapid improvement in passenger coaches 
and how soon they approached the modem type of car in general 
appearance. 

roof. From the dirt roadbed a cloud of dust blew 
in through open windows, in summer mingled with 
the wood smoke from the engine. In winter, a wood 
stove vitiated the air. Screens there were none. 
By night the dim light from flaring candles barely 
illuminated the cars. 

In addition to these physical discomforts were 
added the dangers attending the operation of trains 

[20] 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 



entirely unprotected by any of the safety devices 
now so essential to the modern railroad. No road 
boasted of a double track; there was no telegraph 
by which to operate the trains. The air brake was 
unknown until 1869, when George Westinghouse 




Car constructed by M. P. and M. E. Green of Eoboken, New 
Jersey, in 1831 for the Camden & Amboy Railroad. 

received his patent. The Hodge hand brake which 
was introduced in 1849 was but a ppor improvement 
on the inefficient hand brake of the earlier days. 
The track was usually laid with earth ballast and 
the rail joints might be easily counted by the passen- 
gers as the cars pounded over them. Add to these 
discomforts the necessity of frequent changes from 

[21] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

one short line to another when it was necessary for 
the passengers each time to purchase new tickets and 
personally pick out their baggage, due to the absence 
of coupon tickets and baggage checks, and the joys 
of the tourist may be realized. 

As early as 1836 the officers of the Cumberland 
Valley Railroad of Pennsylvania installed a 
sleeping-car service between Harrisburg and Cham- 
bersburg. This first sleeping car was, as was later 
the first Pullman car, an adaption of an ordinary 
day coach to sleeping requirements. It was divided 
into four compartments in each of which three bunks 
were built against one side of the car, and in the 
rear of the car were provided a towel, basin, and 
water. No bed clothes were furnished and the weary 
passengers fully dressed reclined on rough mattresses 
with their overcoats or shawls drawn over them, 
doubtless marveling the while at the fruitfulness of 
modern invention. As time went on other similar 
cars, with berths arranged in three tiers on one side 
of the car, were adopted by various railroads, and 
occasional but in no manner fundamental improve- 
ments were made. Candles furnished the light, and 
the heat was supplied by box stoves burning wood 

[22] 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 



or sometimes coal. For a number of years these 
makeshift cars found an appreciative patronage, and 
temporarily served the patrons of the road. 

In the next ten years similar "bunk" cars were 
adopted by other railroads, but improvements were 
negligible and their only justification existed in the 



^'ff~ 



^p^f 



■1 




Midnight in the old coaches previous to the introduction of 
the Pullman sleeping car. A night journey in those days was some- 
thing to be dreaded. 

ability of the passengers to recline at length during 
the long night hours. The innovation of bedding 
furnished by the railroad marked a slight progress, 
but the rough and none too clean sheets and blankets 
which the passengers were permitted to select from 
a closet in the end of the car, must have failed even 
in that day to give satisfaction to the fastidious. 

[23] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

But in the early fifties these very inconveniences 
fired the imagination of a young traveler who had 
bought a ticket on a night train between Buffalo 
and Westfield, and in his alert mind was inspired, 
as he tossed sleepless in his bunk, the first vision of 
a car that would revolutionize the railroad travel 
of the world and of a system that would present to 
the traveling public a mighty organization whose 
first purpose would be to contribute safety, con- 
venience, luxury and a uniform and universal service 
from coast to coast. 

George Mortimer Pullman was born in Brockton, 
Chautauqua County, New York, March 3, 1831. 
His early schooling was limited to the country 
schoolhouse, and at the age of fourteen his education 
was completed and he obtained employment at a 
salary of $40 a year in a small store in Westfield, 
New York, that supplied the neighboring farmers 
with their simple necessities. But the occupation of 
a country storekeeper failed to fix the restless mind 
of the boy, and three years later he packed his few 
possessions and moved to Albion, New York, where 
an older brother had developed a cabinet-making 
business. 

[24] 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

Here Pullman found a wider field for his natural 
abilities, and at the same time acquired a knowledge 
of wood working and construction that was soon to 
afford the foundation for larger enterprises. During 
the ten years that followed there were times when 
the demands on the little shop of the Pullman broth- 
ers failed to afford sufficient occupation for the two 
young cabinet makers, and the younger brother, 
eager to improve his opportunities, began to accept 
outside contracts of various sorts. The state of New 
York had begun to widen the Erie Canal which 
passed through Albion. Clustered on its banks were 
numerous warehouses and other buildings, and the 
young man soon proved his ability to contract suc- 
cessfully for the necessary moving of these buildings 
back to the new banks of the canal. The venture 
was successful. An opportunity fortuitously created 
was seized, and not only was an increased livelihood 
secured, but the wider scope of this new activity 
gave the young man an increased confidence in him- 
self on which to enlarge his future activities. 

It was during these years that George M. Pullman 
experienced his first night travel and the hardships 
of the sleeping car accommodations. As Fulton and 

[25] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Watt and Stephenson, in the crude steam engine of 
their time, saw the locomotive and marine engine 
of today, so in this bungling sleeper George M. 
Pullman saw the modern sleeping car and the vast 
system he was in time to originate. In his mind a 
score of ideas were immediately presented and on his 
return to Albion he discussed the possibility of their 
amplification with Assemblyman Ben Field, a warm 
friend in these early days. 

The contracting business had increased Pullman's 
field of observation, it had stimulated his invention, 
it had accustomed him to the management of men. 
When the widening of the Erie Canal had been 
accomplished, the field £or his new vocation was 
practically eliminated; and it was but natural that 
the ambition of youth could not be satisfied to return 
to the cabinet-making business. Westward lay the 
future. In the new town of Chicago, which had in 
so few years grown up at the foot of Lake Michigan, 
young men were already building world enterprises. 
Chicago, named from the wild onion that grew in 
the marsh lands about the winding river, offered 
promise of greatness. Its romantic growth seized 
the imagination of the youthful Albion contractor. 

[26] 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

Naturally his first thought was to profit by his 
contracting experience, and again a happy chance 
favored him. Built on the low land behind the 
sand dunes and south of the sluggish river Chicago 
suffered from a lack of proper drainage. Mud 
choked the streets; cellars were wells of water after 
every rain. In 1855, the year of his arrival, Pull- 
man made a contract to raise the level of certain of 
the city streets. It was a bold undertaking, but his 
confidence knew no hesitation, and the work was 
satisfactorily accomplished. Other contracts fol- 
lowed, and in a short time Pullman had built him- 
self a substantial reputation and had raised a num- 
ber of blocks of brick and stone buildings, includ- 
ing the famous Tremont House, to the new level. 

Chicago in 1858 was a town of 100,000 popula- 
tion. Here Cyrus H. McCormick had built his 
reaper factory on the banks of the river. Here R. 
T. Crane was laying the small foundation for the 
mighty industry of future years. Here Marshall 
Field and Levi Z. Leiter were rising junior partners 
in their growing business, and here the future heads 
of the meat-packing industry were developing their 
mighty business. To the country boy from a New 

[27] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

York village, its muddy streets and rows of frame 
and brick buildings savored of a metropolis; in its 
naked newness he sensed the vital energy that was 
so soon to place it among the cities of the world. 

But even during these years of untiring activity 
the thought of a radical improvement in railway 
car construction was constantly working in the brain 
of the young contractor, and in 1858 he determined 
to give his ideas the practical test, ^^he story of this 
first application of these revolutionizing ideas to the 
railroad coaches then in use is best told in the words 
of Leonard Seibert, who was at that time an 
employee on the Chicago & Alton Railroad. 

In 1858 Mr. Pullman came to Bloomington and 
engaged me to do the work of remodelling two Chicago 
& Alton coaches into the first Pullman sleeping-cars. 
The contract was that Mr. Pullman should make all 
necessary changes inside of the cars. After looking over 
the entire passenger car equipment of the road, which at 
that time constituted about a dozen cars, we selected 
Coaches Nos. 9 and 19. They were forty-four feet long, 
had flat roofs like box cars, single sash windows, of 
which there were fourteen on a side, the glass in each 
sash being only a little over one foot square. The roof 
was only a trifle over six feet from the floor of the car. 
Into this car we got ten sleeping-car sections, besides a 
linen locker and two washrooms — one at each end. 

[28; 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

The wood used in the interior finish was cherry. 
Mr. Pullman was anxious to get hickory, to stand the 
hard usage which it was supposed the cars would receive. 
I worked part of the summer of 1858, employing an 
assistant or two, and the cars went into service in the 
fall of 1858. There were no blue-prints or plans made 
for the remodelling of these first two sleeping-cars, and 
Mr. Pullman and I worked out the details and measure- 
ments as we came to them. The two cars cost Mr. Pull- 
man not more than $2,000, or $1,000 each. They were 
upholstered in plush, lighted by oil lamps, heated with 
box stoves, and mounted on four-wheel trucks with iron 
wheels. There was no porter in those days; the brake- 
man made up the beds. 

In the construction of these first sleeping cars Mr. 
Pullman introduced his invention of upper berth 
construction by means of which the upper berth 
might be closed in the day time and also serve as a 
receptacle for bedding. Other improvements and 
devices were worked out and tested, and from these 
first experiments were drawn the detailed plans from 
which the first cars entirely constructed by him were 
made. Although without technical training himself, 
Mr. Pullman was quick to recognize the necessity 
of skilled assistance to express and improve his 
embryonic ideas. To this end he soon established 
a small workshop, and employing a number of 

[29] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

skilled mechanics set himself to the mastery of the 

problems which confronted him. 

Another interesting personal reminiscence of the 

first days of the Pullman car is afforded by J. L. 

Barnes, who was in charge of the first car run from 

Bloomington to Chicago over the Chicago & Alton. 

Mr. Pullman had an office on Madison Avenue just 
west of LaSalle Street and I boarded with a family very 
close to his office. I used to pass his office on my to 
meals, and having read in the paper that he was working 
on a sleeping car, one day I stopped in and made appli- 
cation to Mr. Pullman personally for a place as conductor. 
I gave him some references and called again and he said 
the references were all right and promised me the place. 
I made my first trip between Bloomington, Illinois, and 
Chicago on the night of September i, 1859. I was 
twenty-two years old at the time. I wore no uniform 
and was attired in citizen's clothes. I wore a badge, that 
was all. One of my passengers was George M. Pullman, 
inventor of the sleeping car. . . . All the passengers 
were from Bloomington and there were no women on the 
car that night. The people of Bloomington, little reckon- 
ing that history was being made in their midst, did not 
come down to the station to see the Pullman car's first 
trip. There was no crowd, and the car, lighted by can- 
dles, moved away in solitary grandeur, if such it might 

be called I remember on the first night I had to 

compel the passengers to take their boots off before they 
got into the berths. They wanted to keep them on — 
seemed afraid to take them off. 

[30] 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

The first month business was very poor. People had 
been in the habit of sitting up all night in the straight 
back seats and they did not think much of trying to sleep 

while traveling After I had made a few trips it 

was decided it did not pay to employ a Pullman con- 
ductor, and the car was placed in charge of the passenger 
conductor of the train which carried the sleeping car, 
and I was out of a job. 

The first Pullman car was a primitive thing. Beside 
being lighted with candles it was heated by a stove at 
each end of the car. There were no carpets on the floor, 
and the interior of the car was arranged in this way: 
There were four upper and four lower berths. The 
backs of the seats were hinged and to make up the lower 
berth the porter merely dropped the back of the seat 
until it was level with the seat itself. Upon this he 
placed a mattress and blanket. There was no sheets. 
The upper berth was suspended from the ceiling of the 
car by ropes and pulleys attached to each of the four 
corners of the berth. The upper berths were constructed 
with iron rods running from the floor of the car to the 
roof, and during the day the berth was pulled up until 
it hugged the ceiling, there being a catch which held it 
up. At night it was suspended about half-way between 
the ceiling of the car and the floor. We used curtains 
in front and between all the berths. In the daytime one 
of the sections was used to store all the mattresses In. 
The car had a very low deck and was quite short. It 
had four wheel trucks and with the exception of the 
springs under It was similar to the freight car of today. 
The coupler was "link and pin;" we had no automatic 
brakes or couplers in those days. There was a very 

[31] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

small toilet room in each end, only large enough for one 
person at a time. The wash basin was made of tin. The 
water for the wash basin came from the drinking can 
which had a faucet so that people could get a drink. 

The two remodeled Chicago & Alton coaches were 
instantly accepted by the public, but despite their 
popularity, and the popularity of a third car which 
followed them, their originator considered them 
merely as experiments and in 1864 plans for the 
first actual Pullman car were completed which gave 
promise of a car radically different in its con- 
struction, appointments, and arrangement from any- 
thing heretofore attempted. Into this car Pullman 
resolutely cast the small capital that he had accu- 
mulated; in its success he placed the unswerving 
confidence that characterized his clear vision and 
indomitable determination to succeed. This model 
car was built in Chicago on the site of the present 
Union Station in a shed belonging to the Chicago & 
Alton Railroad, at a cost of $18,239.31, without 
its equipment, and almost a year was required before 
it was ready for service. Fully equipped and 
ready for service it represented an investment of 
$20,178.14. The "Pioneer" was the name chosen 

[32] 




J. L. Barnes, the first Pullman car conductor, whose reminiscences 
of that early period are quoted in this book 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

for its designation, and with the faith that other 
cars would soon be required the letter "A" was 
added, an indication that even Mr. Pullman's vision 
failed to anticipate the possible demand beyond the 
twenty-six letters of the alphabet. 

Never before had such a car been seen ; never had 
the wildest flights of fancy imagined such mag- 
nificence. Up to the building of the "Pioneer" 
$5,000 had represented the maximum that had ever 
been spent on a single railroad coach. It was unbe- 
lievable that this $18,000 investment could yield a 
remunerative return. The "Pioneer" had improved 
trucks with springs reinforced by blocks of solid rub- 
ber; it was a foot wider and two and a half feet 
higher than any car then in service, the additional 
height being necessary to accommodate the hinged 
upper berth of Mr. Pullman's invention. Com- 
bined with its unusual strength, weight, and solidity, 
its beauty and the artistic character of its furnishing 
and decoration were unprecedented. At one stride 
an advance of fifty years had been effected. 

A further proof of Mr. Pullman's faith in the 
success of the "Pioneer" type of car is illustrated 
by the fact that due to its increased height and 

[33] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

breadth the dimensions of station platforms and 
bridges at the time of its construction would not per- 
mit its passage over any existing railroad. It is said 
that these necessary changes were hastened in the 
spring of 1865 by the demand that the new 
''Pioneer" be attached to the funeral train which 
conveyed the body of President Lincoln from Chi- 
cago to Springfield. In this way one railroad was 
quickly adapted to the new requirements, and a few 
years later when the " Pioneer " was engaged to take 
General Grant on a trip from Detroit to his home 
town of Galena, Illinois, another route was opened 
to its passage. 

Other roads soon made the necessary alterations 
to permit the passage of the "Pioneer" and its sister 
cars which were now under construction. The 
"Pioneer" had, by this time, won wide recognition 
and popularity, and a few months later was put in 
regular service on the Alton Road. So well were 
its dimensions calculated by Mr. Pullman that the 
"Pioneer" immediately became the model by which 
all railroad cars were measured, and to this day prac- 
tically the only changes in dimensions have been in 
increased length. 

[34] 



EVOLUTION OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

To secure the continuous use of the "Pioneer" 
and other similar cars an agreement was effected 
between Mr. Pullman and the Chicago & Alton 
which marked the beginning of the vast system 
which today embraces the entire country and makes 
possible continuous and luxurious travel over a large 
number of distinct railroads. Thus in the space of 
a few years George M. Pullman not only evolved 
a type of railroad car luxurious and beautiful in 
design and embracing in its construction patents of 
great originality and ingenuity, but, in addition, 
evolved the rudimentary conception of a system 
by which passengers might be carried to any destina- 
tion in cars of uniform construction, equipped for 
day or night travel, and served and protected by 
trained employees whose sole function is to provide 
for the passengers' safety, comfort, and convenience. 



[35] 



Ill 

The Rise of a Great Industry 



CHAPTER III 

THE RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

THE " Pioneer " had cost Mr. Pullman $20,000. 
Compared with the finest sleeping cars pre- 
viously in use, it was clearly evident that a new 
development in luxurious travel had been accom- 
plished. The best ordinary sleeping cars were 
considered expensive at $4,000. There was no more 
comparison between the "Pioneer" and its predeces- 
sors in comfort than in cost. But it remained to be 
seen what the public would think of it; whether 
they preferred luxury, comfort, and real service, to 
hardship, discomfort, and no service at a lower cost. 
The new cars were larger, heavier, and more sub- 
stantial than any previously constructed. Increased 
safety was one of their advantages. Moreover, they 
were far more beautiful from every aspect — 
artistically painted, richly decorated, and furnished 
with fittings for that day remarkable for their elab- 
orate nature. They were universally admired, and 
quickly became the topic of interest among the 

[39] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

traveling public. It is remarkable that at this early 
date the two features of the Pullman car which 
characterize it today — the features of safety and 
luxury — should have T)een so clearly defined. 

It is human nature to accept each step forward 
as a new standard and it is characteristically Ameri- 
can to refuse to accept an inferior article as soon as 
one superior is available, even if at greater cost. The 
"Pioneer" and its successors established such a 
standard, and immediately those accustomed and 
able to afford the increased rate required by the 
greater investment in the car, gladly and thankfully 
accepted it; while those whose nature usually inclines 
to haggling when the purse is touched, were con- 
vinced of the worth of the innovation^ by the 
assurance against disaster which the weight and 
strength of the Pullman cars assured. 

The next car constructed by Mr. Pullman, after 
the "Pioneer" cost $24,000. And very soon after 
several additional cars were built at approximately 
the same cost, and were put in operation on the 
Michigan Central Railroad. Here was the great 
test. In these luxurious carriages and in the verdict 
of the traveling public rested the future of Mr. 

[40] 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

Pullman's project. The question simply resolved 
itself to this: Did the public want them*? In the 
old sleeping cars a berth had cost considerably less 
than it was necessary to charge for one in the new 
Pullman cars. In the mind of the inventor there 
was no question as to the verdict. The railroad 
authorities were equally certain the other way. 
They did not think the public would pay the extra 
sum. 

There was but one way to decide, and Mr. Pull- 
man made the suggestion that both Pullman cars 
and old style sleeping cars be operated on the same 
train at their respective prices. The results would 
show. 

What happened is best described in the words of 
a contemporary writer. 

Mr. Pullman suggested that the matter be submitted to 
the decision of the traveling public. He proposed that 
the new cars, with their increased rate, be put on trains 
with the old cars at the cheaper rate. If the traveling 
public thought the beauty of finish, the increased comfort, 
and the safety of the new cars worth $2 per night, there 
were the $24,000 cars ; if, on the other hand, they were 
satisfied with less attractive surroundings at a saving of 
50 cents, the cheaper cars were at their disposal. It was 
a simple submission without argument of the plain facts 

[41] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

on both sides of the issue — in other words, an application 
of the good American doctrine of appeaHng to the people 
as the court of highest resort. 

The decision came instantly and in terms which left no 
opening for discussion. The only travelers who rode in 
the old cars were those who were grumbling because they 
could not get berths in the new ones. After running 
practically empty for a few days, the cars in which the 
price for a berth was $1.50 were withdrawn from service, 
and Pullmans, wherein the two-dollar tariff prevailed, 
were substituted in their places, and this for the very 
potent reason, that the public insisted upon it. Nor did 
the results stop there. The Michigan Central Railway, 
charging an extra tariff of fifty cents per night as com- 
pared with other eastern lines, proved an aggressive com- 
petitor of those lines, not in spite of the extra charge, but 
because of it, and of the higher order of comfort and 
beauty it represented. Then followed a curious reversal 
of the usual results of competition. Instead of a levelling 
down to the cheaper basis on which all opposition was 
united, there was a levelling up to the standard on which 
the Pullman service was planted and on which it stood 
out single-handed and alone. 

Within comparatively a short period all the Michigan 
Central's rival lines were forced by sheer pressure from 
the traveling public to withdraw the inferior and cheaper 
cars and meet the superior accommodations and the neces- 
sarily higher tariff. In other words, the inspiration of 
that key-note of vigorous ambition for excellence of the 
product itself, irrespective of immediate financial returns, 
which was struck with such emphasis in the building of 
the " Pioneer," and which ever since has rung through all 

[42] 



One of the first cars built by George M. Pullman 



/ ^ 

—M _L_ 


- *^^1 




Interior of the car. (i) the car in the daytime showing wood 

stove and fuel box; (2) making up the berths. There 

were no end divisions, and a thin curtain only 

separated the berths 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

the Pullman work, was felt in the railroad world of the 
United States at that early date, just as it is even more 
commonly felt at the present time. At one bound it put 
the American railway passenger service in the leadership 
of all nations in that particular branch of progress, and 
has held it there ever since as an object lesson in the 
illustration of a broad and far-reaching principle.^ 

It will probably be interesting at this point to 
describe with some detail the Pullman car of this 
early period. In the Daily Illinois State Register^ 
Springfield, May 26, 1865, appears an interesting 
description of one of the new Pioneer type of cars 
just installed on the Chicago & Alton Railroad. 

To the train on the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Rail- 
road, which passed up at noon today, was attached one 
of Pullman's improved and beautiful sleeping carriages, 
containing a party of excursionists from the Garden 
City [Chicago], to whom the trip was complimentarily 
extended by the company of the road, and among whom 
was George M. Pullman, Esq., of Chicago, the patentee 
of the car. This carriage, which we had the pleasure of 
inspecting during the stay of the train at our depot, we 
found to be the most comfortable and complete in all its 
appurtenances, and decidedly superior in many respects to 
any similar carriage we have ever seen. It is fifty-four 
feet in length by ten in width, and was built at a cost of 
$18,000, the painting alone costing upwards of $500. 

1 Contemporary American Biography, p. 260. 
[43] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Besides the berths, sufficient in number to accommodate 
upwards of a hundred passengers, there are four state 
rooms formed by folding doors, and so constructed with 
the berths that the whole can easily be thrown into one 
apartment. When the car is not used for sleeping pur- 
poses, as in the day, every appearance of a berth or a bed 
is concealed, and in their stead appear the most com- 
fortable of seats. 

Westlake's patent heating and ventilating apparatus is 
applied so that a constant current of pure and pleasant 
air is kept in circulation through the car. In fact, it was 
useless to attempt to enumerate, in so brief a notice, even 
a few of the many improvements which have been intro- 
duced by the patentees into the carriage, rendering it as 
they have, superior to any that we have ever inspected. 
To one fact, however, we will refer in this connection, as 
especially conducive to the comfort of the traveling 
public, viz., that a daily change of linen is made in the 
berths of this new carriage, thereby keeping them con- 
stantly clean and comfortable, and rendering the car much 
more attractive than are similar carriages where this is 
neglected. As we are informed by Mr. Pullman that 
these cars will hereafter be run on the St. Louis and 
Chicago line, we would especially direct the attention of 
travelers to the fact, and recommend them to investigate 
the matter of our notice for themselves. 

Exactly how "upwards of a hundred passengers" 
could have been accommodated is hardly clear, but 
the enthusiasm of the reporter, fired perhaps by the 
luxury of clean linen for each berth each day, may 

[441 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

account for this apparent exaggeration. In the 
Illinois Journal, another Springfield paper, of May 
30, the reporter reduces the estimate of the capacity 
to fifty-two and comments with perhaps more detail 
on the decorative features of the car. 

We are reminded by a prophecy which we heard some 
three years since — that the time was not far distant when 
a radical change would be introduced in the manner of 
constructing railroad cars; the public would travel upon 
them with as much ease as though sitting in their parlors, 
and sleep and eat on board of them with more ease and 
comfort than it would be possible to do on a first-class 
steamer. We believed the words of the seer at the time, 
but did not think the)'- were so near fulfillment until 
Friday last, when we were invited to the Chicago & 
Alton depot in this city to examine an improved sleeping- 
car, manufactured by Messrs. Field & Pullman, patentees, 
after a design by George M. Pullman, Esq., Chicago. 

The writer describes his impressions of the interior. 
The absence of "mattresses or dingy curtains" by 
day, the beauty of the window curtains "looped in 
heavy folds," the "French plate mirrors suspended 
from the walls," as well as the "several beautiful 
chandeliers, with exquisitely ground shades" 
hanging from a ceiling "painted with chaste and 
elaborate design upon a delicately tinted azure 

[45] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

ground," while the black walnut woodwork and 
"richest Brussels carpeting" make the picture com- 
plete. It is small wonder that the Pullman car 
excited admiration, and that its first appearance in 
the Illinois towns was probably recorded by similar 
editorial appreciation. 

But perhaps one of the most interesting insights 
into the condition which the new Pullman cars were 
so quick to remedy, is found in the Chicago 'tribune^ 
June 20, 1865'. After a veritable eulogy on the 
elegance and comfort of the Pullman car, the writer 
draws the following enviable contrast. 

It leaves to others to ticket the actual transit, so many 
miles for so much money, and comes in with its cars as 
the Ticket Agent of Comfort, sells you coupons to rest 
and ease by the way. So you wish to go through to New 
York or Baltimore, yourself, Belinda, Biddy and the 
baby, baskets, bundles, etc? You think of changes of 
cars by night, and rushes for seats for your party by day, 
of seats foul with the scrapings of dirty boots, of floors 
flowing with saliva, of coarse faces and coarse conversa- 
tion, of seats you cannot recline in, of the ordinary dis- 
comforts of a long journey by rail ! 

It IS small wonder that the new Pullman cars 
found an appreciative welcome ! 

[46] 




George M. Pullman explaining details of car construction 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

In 1866 five Pullman sleeping cars were put in 
operation on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
Railroad, and late in May an excursion for several 
hundred invited guests was given from Chicago to 
Aurora, Illinois, and return. The new cars were 
named, "Atlantic," "Pacific," "Aurora," "City of 
Chicago," and "Omaha." Occasioned by the com- 
forts which this new equipment disclosed a current 
newspaper remarked: 

Pullman is a benefactor to his kind. The dreaded 
journey to New York becomes a mere holiday excursion 
in his delightful coaches, and, by the way, he will soon 
have a through line from Chicago to New York, in which 
a man need never leave his place from one city to the 
other. 

The year 1867 marks the incorporation of Pull- 
man's Palace Car Company, for the purpose of the 
manufacture and operation of sleeping cars. At 
the time of incorporation George M. Pullman owned 
all of the sleeping cars on the Michigan Central 
Railroad, Great Western [Canada] Railroad, and 
the New York Central Railroad lines, a grand total 
of forty-eight cars. In the operation of these cars 
he was ably assisted by his brother, A. B. Pullman, 
who held the office of general superintendent. 

[47] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

In forming the Pullman Company, the founder 
aspired to establish an organized system by which 
the traveling public might be enabled to travel in 
luxurious cars of uniform construction, adapted to 
both night and day requirements, without change 
between distant points, and over various distinct 
lines of railroads. In addition, such a service would 
provide the heretofore unknown asset of responsible 
employees to whose care might be entrusted women, 
children, and invalids. It was a service that was 
sorely needed, and indication pointed to its prompt 
acceptance by the railroads and the public. 

In the same year a remarkable achievement in 
railroad travel was accomplished. Due to the dif- 
ferent gauge tracks in use by the several railroads 
connecting Chicago and New York, the continuous 
passage of a car from one city to the other was 
impossible. But in 1867 the standardization of the 
gauge was effected by the completion of a third rail 
on the Great Western [Canada] Railroad, and to 
mark this opening of through com.munication, an 
excursion was arranged from Chicago to New York 
on the "Western World," the newest Pullman 
" hotel " sleeping car. 

[48] 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

At this point it is interesting to note that the first 
"hotel car," the "President," was put in service 
by the Pullman Company in 1867 on the Great 
Western Railroad of Canada. The hotel car was 
a combination car, in reality a sleeping car with a 
kitchen built in at one end. The meals were served 
at tables placed in the sections. To the Pullman 
Company, accordingly, must be accorded the credit 
of first supplying to the public the service of meals 
on board a train. The success of the "President" 
led to the immediate construction of the "Western 
World " and its sister car " Kalamazoo." These 
cars, however, must not be confused with the dining 
car which was later developed from the " hotel car " 
by the Pullman Company, and to which the " hotel 
cars " rapidly gave place. 

The Detroit Commercial Advertiser of June 1, 
1867, comments: 

But the crowning glory of Mr. Pullman's invention is 
evinced in his success in supplying the car with a cuisine 
department containing a range where every variety of 
meats, vegetables and pastry may be cooked on the car, 
according to the best style of culinary art. 

The following bill of fare illustrates the variety 
of edibles provided on this celebrated excursion. 

f49l 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

MENU 

OYSTERS 

Raw 50 

Fried and Roast 60 

COLD 

Beef Tongue, Sugar-cured Ham, 

Pressed Corned Beef, Sardines 4O' 

Chicken Salad, Lobster Salad 50 

BROILED 

Beefsteak, with Potatoes 60 

Mutton Chops, with Potatoes 60 

Ham, with Potatoes 50 

EGGS 

Boiled, Fried, Scrambled, Omelette 

Plain 40 

Omelette with Rum 50 

Chow-Chow, Pickles 

Welsh Rarebit 50 

French Coffee 25 

Tea 25 

The excursion party left Chicago on April 8, 
1867, and comfortably established in the "Western 

[50I 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

World" arrived in Detroit the following day. At 
Detroit the river was crossed on the "great iron 
ferry boat," the first company of passengers that 
ever passed from Chicago to Canada without change 
of cars. On the new third rail of the Great West- 
ern, a speed of forty miles was often maintained 
for considerable periods. "The cars were decorated 
with American and British flags, symbolizing the 
union which is destined to take place between the 
United States and Canada. A train has just rolled 
by, the engine and passenger cars on the broad gauge, 
and freight cars from the East on the narrow 
gauge." So goes the journal of one of the passengers. 
Large crowds visited the train at Rochester, Syra- 
cuse, and Utica, and at Albany, Erastus Corning 
telegraphed Commodore Vanderbilt that the car 
must be taken to New York, if possible, and the 
gauge of the Harlem road be taken for that purpose. 
The party arrived in New York on April 14. One 
of the purposes of sending the "Western World" 
to New York was that it might transport on its 
return trip. Dr. J. C. Durant, vice president of the 
Union Pacific Road, and a committee of directors, 
to examine a portion of their new transcontinental 

[51] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

line which the contractors were ready to turn over. 
A member of the party describes the call on Dr. 
Durant in his office on Nassau Street and refers to 
the office as "probably the finest in New York, 
beautiful with paintings and statuary, and enlivened 
with the singing of birds." 

Following the "Western World," the "hotel 
cars" were promptly put in service and regular 
through service was established between Chicago 
and eastern points. The new "City of Boston" 
and "City of New York" surpassed even the 
"Western World" in magnificence and were popu- 
larly reported to have exceeded $30,000 each in 
cost. These cars were known as "hotel cars" for 
the reason that each contained all the requirements 
for a protracted journey. The main body of the 
car was occupied by the berths and seats and at one 
end a kitchen and pantry provided the culinary 
service. The dining car, devoted entirely to restau- 
rant purposes, was a second step which soon fol- 
lowed. The first dining car personally designed 
by Mr. Pullman was named the " Delmonico," 
and was operated on the Chicago & Alton in 
1868. 

[52] 




One of the first Pullman cars in which meals were served 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

But it was in 1869 that the Pullman car made 
perhaps its greatest advance in the interest and con- 
fidence of the public for in that year the Union 
Pacific, building westward from the Missouri River 
at Omaha, met the Central Pacific, which built from 
San Francisco eastward. By their union a line was 
established between the two coasts of the continent, 
a slender thread of track which stretched for 1,848 
miles through a practically uninhabited country. 
Almost simultaneously with the completion of the 
road there was put upon the rails one of the most 
superb trains ever turned out of the Pullman shops. 
Its journey to California and its reception there were 
in the nature of a progressive ovation. From that 
time forth the great population of the Pacific coast 
knew no train for long distance travel save a Pull- 
man train, and would hear of no other. When 
people from California reached Chicago on their way 
eastward, the road over which Pullman cars ran got 
their patronage, and roads over which other cars 
were operated did not. Newspapers and magazines 
were awakened to studies of the Pullman cars and 
the Pullman system, and scores of printed pages 
were filled with the marvels of a journey to the 

[53] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Pacific Ocean which was nothing more than a six 
days' sojourn in a luxurious hotel, past the windows 
of which there constantly flowed a great panorama 
of the American continent, thousands of miles in 
length and as wide as the eye could reach. Illus- 
trated magazine articles which appeared telling the 
story of a trip to California had as many pictures 
of Pullman interiors as they had of the big trees or 
the Yosemite Valley. The effect of all this was far 
reaching. The great Pennsylvania line abandoned 
its own service and adopted the Pullman, and many 
other lines made application for inclusion in the 
Pullman system. 

In May, 1870, the first through train from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific crossed the continent, engaged 
for a special excursion by the Boston Board of 
Trade, many distinguished Bostonians being num- 
bered among the passengers. During the trip a daily 
newspaper entitled the ^rans-Continental was pub- 
lished. In the issue of May 31, published on the 
sixth day out, as the train was crossing the summit 
of the Sierra Nevadas, an account is given of a meet- 
ing of the passengers in the smoking car, and resolu- 
tions passed by them were printed. The Hon. Alex 

[54] 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 

H. Rice presided at the meeting, and the resolutions 
were offered by Frank H. Peabody, a Boston banker, 
and seconded by Robert B. Forbes, another Bos- 
tonian. 

Resolved, That we, the passengers of the Boston Board 
of Trade Pullman excursion train, the first through train 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, having now been a week 
en route for San Francisco, and having had, during this 
period, ample opportunity to test the character and qual- 
ity of the accommodations supplied for our journey, 
hereby express our entire satisfaction with the arrange- 
ments made by Mr. George M. Pullman, and our admira- 
tion of the skill and energy which have resulted in the 
construction, equipment and general management of this 
beautiful and commodious moving hotel. 

Resolved, That we return our cordial thanks to Mr. 
Pullman for the very great pains taken by him before- 
hand to make the present journey safe and pleasurable; 
that we recognize the complete success which has fol- 
lowed all his efforts, and that we extend to him our sincere 
wishes for such a degree of prosperity to attend all his 
operations as will be proportionate to his merits as one 
of the most public-spirited, sagacious, and liberal railroad 
men of the present day. 

Resolved, That we take pleasure in witnessing, as we 
journey from point to point, through all the Western 
States, the many evidences of Mr. Pullman's enterprise 
and the extent of his operations in the cars which we meet 
belonging to the Pullman Company, attached to the regu- 
lar trains for the use of the public, or appropriated espe- 

[55] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



cially to private excursion parties, and we earnestly hope 
that there will be no delay in placing the elegant* and 
homelike carriages upon the principal routes in the New 
England States, and we will do all in our power to 
accomplish this end. 

The list of passengers on this notable excursion 
included : 



Hon. Alex. H. Rice 

Maj. Geo. P. Denny 

Hon. J. M. S. Williams 

James W. Bliss 

Edward W. Kingsley 

Frederick Allen and wife 

H. S. Berry 

Miss Josie W. Bliss 

Hon. John B. Brown and 
wife 

E. W. Burr and son 

John L. Bremer 

Geo. D. Baldwin and wife 

Miss L. E. Billings 

Chas. W. Brooks 

M. S. Bolles 

Alvah Crocker and wife 

Mrs. F. Cunningham 

Thomas Dana, Mrs. Thom- 
as Dana, 2nd, Miss M. 
E. Dana 

Mrs. Geo. P. Denny 

Arthur B. Denny 

[ 



Cyrus Dupee and wife 

John H. Eastburn and wife 

Robert B. Forbes and wife 

Joshua Reed 

J. S. Fogg 

Mrs. E. E. Poole 

Misses Farnsworth 

Robert O. Fuller 

J. Warren Faxon 

N. W. Farwell and wife 

Miss Mary E. Farwell 

Miss Evelyn A. Farwell 

Curtis Guild and wife 

C. L. Harding and wife 
Miss N. Harding 
Edgar Harding 

J. F. Hunnewell 

J. F. Heustis 

W. S. Houghton and wife 

D. C. Holder and wife 
Miss C. Harrington 

A. L. Haskell and wife 
Miss Alice J. Haley 

S6] 



RISE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY 



J. M. Haskell and wife 
H. O. Houghton and wife 
John Humphrey 
Hamilton A. Hill and wife 
Benjamin James 
C. F. Kittredg-e 
Mrs. C. A. Kinglsey 
Miss Addie P. Kinglsey 
Miss Mary L. Kinglsey 
Chas. S. Kendall 
Miss M, C. Love joy 
John Lewis 
Jas. Longley and wife 
Geo. Myrick and wife 
Col. L. B. Marsh and wife 
C. F. McClure and wife 
Joseph Mclntyre 
Sterne Morse 
Fulton Paul 
F. H. Peabody, wife and 

servant 
Miss F. Peabody 
Miss L. Peabody 
Master F. E. Peabody 
Rev. E. G. Porter 
Miss M. F. Prentiss 
James W. Roberts and wife 
Wm. Roberts 



S. B. Rindge and wife 

Master F. H. Rindge 

J. M. B. Reynolds and wife 

John H, Rice 

Hon. Stephen Salisbury 

M. S. Stetson and wife 

D. R. Sortwell and wife 
Alvin Sortwell 

F. H. Shapleigh 

T. Albert Taylor and wife 

E. B. Towne 

Lawson Valentine and 

wife 
Miss Valentine 
Rev. R. C. Waterston and 

wife 
A. Williams 
Dr. H. W. Williams and 

wife 
N. D. Whitney and wife 
Judge G. W. Warren 
Geo. A. Wadley and wife 
Henry T. Woods 
Mrs. J. M. S. Williams 
Miss E. M. Williams 
Miss C. T. Williams 
J. Bert Williams 



In the next few years the Pullman Palace Car 
Company established manufacturing shops in 

[57] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Detroit, and in 1875 ^ ^^^ " reclining-chair car," 
the first parlor car to be operated in the United 
States, was presented by Mr. Pullman to the public. 
For several years parlor cars of Pullman design and 
construction had been in satisfactory use on the Mid- 
land Railway, between London and Liverpool, 
England. The success of these cars promptly 
resulted in the construction of the "Maritana" for 
use in the United States. The chairs in this new 
car were heavily and richly upholstered and revolved 
on a swivel, on the same principle as the chairs in the 
parlor car of the present day. 



[58] 




The first parlor car, 1875 



IV 

The Pullman Car in Europe 



A 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PULLMAN CAR IN EUROPE 

MODEST paragraph in many American news- 
papers in February, 1873, announced the 
momentous news that England was soon to enjoy 
the novelty of Pullman transportation — " The Mid- 
land Railway Company has entered into a contract 
with the Pullman Palace Car Company for the 
equipment of their road with American drawing 
room and sleeping coaches." The Midland was the 
longest and most important of three great railroads 
which started from London and extended to Liver- 
pool and Scotland, transversing the rich central 
counties of England where so. few years before the 
coach horn had sounded through the hills. The 
adoption of Pullman equipment by this prominent 
railroad was singularly conspicuous. 

On February 15, 1873, ^^ a "half-yearly meet- 
ing of the shareholders of the Midland Railway," 
Mr. Pullman personally addressed the officers of 
the company. It appears that Mr. Allport, the 

[61] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

general manager of the Midland Railway, on a 
recent visit to the United States and Canada, had 
been greatly impressed by the accommodations 
afforded the traveling public, and had made a par- 
ticular study of the Pullman cars. Acting on his 
advice the directors invited Mr. Pullman to England 
to appear before the meeting. Mr. Pullman pro- 
posed that the Midland Company should authorize 
the speedy construction of carriages particularly 
adapted to their requirements, and a motion was 
carried to authorize the construction of such cars on 
the basic Pullman principles. It was accordingly 
agreed that eighteen new cars should be constructed 
in America and shipped to England in August and 
that Mr. Pullman should return to England at that 
time to superintend their installation. 

By the contract the Pullman Company agreed to 
furnish as many dining-room, drawing-room, and 
sleeping cars as the demands of the traveling pub- 
lic required, without charge to the road, its 
compensation being in the extra fare paid for use of 
the cars. The road, on the other hand, received its 
compensation in the free use of the cars, in return 
for which it guaranteed to the Pullman Company 

[62] 



THE PULLMAN CAR IN EUROPE 

the exclusive right to furnish such cars for fifteen 
years. As in America, the porters, conductors, cooks, 
waiters and other attendants were hired by the Pull- 
man Company. Two night trains and two day 
trains of American cars only, were to be put on at 
the start. The contract was not exclusive, and other 
English railroads watched with interest the work- 
ing out of the American innovation. 

The popularity of the Pullman car at home and 
abroad quite naturally inspired a host of imitators. 
Among the first was Colonel W. D. Mann, the pro- 
prietor of the Mobile Register, who designed a 
sleeping car embodying certain characteristic Pull- 
man features, but divided transversely into compart- 
ments or "boudoirs," each entered directly from 
the sides, and connected by a private door permitting 
the passage of the attendant to and through the 
several compartments. Each compartment con- 
tained seats for four persons, which by night could 
be made up into beds. The design was ingenious but 
failed in many vital respects to compete with the 
greater comfort and roominess of the Pullman car. 

As the Pullman car was the first sleeping car to be 
installed for regular service in England, so credit 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

should be given to Colonel Mann for affording the 
first sleeping car for public service ever operated on 
the Continent. Mann's "Boudoir Cars" were 
installed on the Vienna and Munich line in 1873, 
and their favorable reception and popularity unques- 
tionably went far to better the trying conditions of 
European travel. 

Designed in America and introduced on the con- 
tinent, the Mann boudoir cars enjoyed an almost 
unoccupied field in Europe, with the exception of 
England, where the railway managers had adopted 
the Pullman cars as their standard. The Mann car 
was developed to suit European railroads and 
European wants. A Belgian company was organ- 
ized to introduce sleeping cars by contracts with 
railroad companies, somewhat like those of the Pull- 
man Company in America. The Mann cars which 
were put in service in the United States between 
Boston and New York in 1883 were divided into 
eight compartments, some accommodating two per- 
sons, some four. The seats were arranged trans- 
versely instead of longitudinally. Due to their 
smaller passenger capacity a higher rate was neces- 
sarily charged than for Pullman accommodations. 

[64] 




Interior of a Pullman car used about 1880. Here a tendency to 
ornamentation begins to show. Note the low-backed seats 



THE PULLMAN CAR IN EUROPE 

But exclusive possession of the Continental field 
was not left to Colonel Mann undisputed, for during 
the year 1875 ^^' Pullman established a shop at 
Turin, Italy, and under the direction of a Mr. A. 
Rapp, who was sent on from the Detroit works, a 
number of cars were constructed for use on through 
trains on the principal Italian lines. The following 
testimonial presented to Mr. Rapp at the conclusion 
of the work by the men who had been employed 
expresses, although in none too polished English, 
their appreciation of the work that had been pro- 
vided them. 

TO 

PULLMAN ESQUIRE, THE GREAT INVENTOR 

OF THE 

SALOON COMFORTABLE CARRIAGES 

AND 

MASTER RAPP THE CIVIL ENGINEER, DIRECTOR 

OF THE MANUFACTURE OF THE SAME 

THE 

ITALIAN WORKMEN 

BEG TO UMILIATE. 

Welcome, Welcome Master Pullman 
The great inventor of the Saloon Carriages, 
Italy will be thankful to the man 
For now and ever, for ages and ages. 

[65] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

To Master Rapp we men are thankful. 
Cause of his kindness and adviser sages, 
Our hearts of true gladness is full : 
And we shall remember him for ages. 

Should Master Pullman ever succeed 
To' continue is work in Italy 
What we wish to him indeed, 

We hope to be chosen 
To finish the work and work as a man, 
To show our gratitude to Master Pullman. 

FiNO AND His Friends. 
Turin, lo January 1876. 

The appearance of the new Pullman cars in Eng- 
land created immediate and favorable comment, for 
not only were the cars radical in the service which 
they afforded, but their construction, following the 
advanced principles of American car building, of- 
fered sharp contrast to the less modern cars of 
English construction. From the most gorgeous first- 
class carriage down to the dumpiest begrimed coal 
car, all British railway conveyances rested on four 
iron wheels, placed in the position where Artemus 
Ward located the legs of the horse — one at each 
corner. Until the Pullman sleepers were introduced 
into Britain, the sight of a car resting on eight 

[66] 



THE PULLMAN CAR IN EUROPE 

wheels was unprecedented, as no one thought of 
doubting the entire security from danger of a carriage 
with only four points of support. Indeed, the con- 
servative Briton saw no more real necessity for a 
railway carriage having eight wheels than for a horse 
to have more than four legs. 

Under arrangements with the Great Northern 
Railway, Pullman "dining room" carriages were 
put in service on November i, 1879, between Leeds 
and King's Cross Station, London. Luncheon and 
dinner were served and the menu included "soups, 
fish, entrees, roast joints, puddings and fruits for 
dessert," a truly English bill of fare. The reception 
of this innovation is described by the London 'T'ele- 
graph^ which concluded a comment on the dining 
car with this friendly suggestion: 

If the British public can be brought to give this new 
refreshment-car system, just inaugurated by the Great 
Northern Railway, a fair trial, there will be another 
traveling infliction, besides Dyspepsia and Discontent, 
which will be speedily laid in the Red Sea. I mean the 
ghost of Ennui. Luncheon or dinner on board a Pullman 
palace-car will surely banish Boredom from railway 
journeys. 

By the year 1879 Pullman sleeping and drawing 
room cars were in operation on three English and 

1^7^ 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

three Scotch lines, and at the invitation of the 
Italian Government, cordially responded to by the 
Pullman Palace Car Company, sleeping cars, similar 
to those in use in England on the Midland and Great 
Northern railways were put in weekly service be- 
tween Brindisi and Bologna, in connection with the 
steamers of the Peninsula and Oriental Company. 
At Bologna the service was taken up by the Belgian 
"Societe Anonyme des Wagons Lits" — an inter- 
esting recognition by a foreign government of the 
superiority of the American railway carriages. 

In 1888 "The Pullman Limited Express" began 
regular service on the London, Brighton, & South 
Coast Line, between Victoria Station and Brighton. 
Single cars of the American pattern had been run- 
ning on this line for five or six years, but in this 
train for the first time the English public was offered 
a " solid Pullman " equipment. Four cars comprised 
the train — a parlor car, a drawing room car with 
ladies' boudoir and dining room, a restaurant car, 
and a smoking car, while a compartment at each end 
of the train next to the luggage compartment was 
provided for servants. On this train electric lighting 
was first employed by the Pullman Company for 

[68] 




w 



THE PULLMAN CAR IN EUROPE 

illuminating railroad ca-rs — a particular feature that 
received wide advertisement. 

The London, Brighton, & South Coast Railway 
opened the New Year of 1889 with the first "vesti- 
bule" train that had ever greeted the eyes of for- 
eign travelers. Three Pullman cars, "Princess," 
"Prince," and "Albert Victor," were regularly at- 
tached to a train of three first-class cars. The Pull- 
man cars were built at the Pullman plant at Detroit, 
Michigan, and were shipped in sections to England. 
By this innovation Yankee genius again demon- 
strated its leadership, and the travelers of a distant 
nation profited by the genius and energy of an Amer- 
ican inventor. 

The Pullman Company, Limited, of England, ex- 
isted as a property of the American company until 
the year 1906, when, due to the enormous develop- 
ment of the system in the United States, it was 
deemed wise for economic reasons to separate the 
two companies. But today the British company 
still proudly bears the name of Pullman, a tribute 
to the inventive genius, untiring energy, and wide 
vision of a country boy of the new world. 

[69] 



V 

The Survival of the Fittest 



CHAPTER V 

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

ONE of the most interesting elements in the 
history of the Pullman car and the Pullman 
Company is the story of imitation and competition 
which for a period after the foundation of the parent 
company thrived and later disappeared. The success 
of the Pullman car necessarily brought competition. 
It was wholesome that such competition should arise. 
If a car more convenient than the car of Mr. Pull- 
man's invention could be devised, it was right that 
it should be given the test of public opinion. That 
no car constructed along different basic lines sur- 
vived, established the right of the Pullman car to its 
preeminence. That certain cars patterned after Mr. 
Pullman^s basic ideas, and in most cases directly in- 
fringing on his patents, received a degree of popu- 
larity again reflects creditably to the Pullman car. 

Distinct from the innovations afforded by Pull- 
man car construction, the universal service of the 
Company afforded the public a new service of equal 

[73] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



value. Where formerly it was necessary for the 
traveler to change from car to car whenever and 
wherever one railroad connected with another line, 
the uniform service of the Pullman Company created 
a new and infinitely more desirable situation, for it 
was now possible to travel without inconvenience oi 
interruption between practically any two points in 
the country regardless of the number of different 
railroads over whose tracks the traveler's ticket re- 
quired passage. By competition, the value of such 
a service was tested; tested alike by the individual 
railroads and their patrons. That each and every 
competing company ultimately retired from the field, 
and that practically every railroad in the United 
States has today contracted with the Pullman Com- 
pany for its standardized service, is tacit recognition 
to the worth of the service rendered. 

There are still other reasons why the control of 
sleeping and parlor service should be delegated to a 
single company. Due to the vast area embraced by 
the boundaries of the United States and the wide 
range of climate which these boundaries contain, 
there are many railroads which require during certain 
months of the jear a larger number of cars to trans- 

[74] 




jS .s 




THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

port their through passengers than in others. Other 
roads require an equally great number of sleeping and 
parlor cars during other months, as for instance those 
roads which carry the winter tourists to the South and 
Southwest in winter as opposed to the roads which 
feel the peak of passenger travel in summer when 
the vacationists are headed for the Atlantic coast 
resorts or the northwestern mountains. Again, there 
are special occasions, like great conventions, when 
the railroads touching the convention city must 
have hundreds of sleeping cars above their normal 
needs. 

Few railroads could afford to tie up capital in the 
cars required for such brief periods of demand; it 
would be an economic fallacy to pass the expense of 
the maintenance and constant replacement of such 
an equipment on to the public. To meet this situa- 
tion is the mission of the Pullman Company. 

Of the numerous sleeping car companies the Gates 
Sleeping Car Company was perhaps the earliest. 
This car was named after Mr. G. B. Gates, General 
Manager of the Lake Shore Road, and with the 
consolidation of the Hudson River Railroad and the 
New York Central in 1869, these cars, previously 

[75] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

only operated on the Lake Shore, were put in the 
New York, Buffalo, Chicago service. 

Among the various competitors of the Pullman 
Company, the Wagner Palace Car Company, which 
succeeded, in 1865, the New York Central Sleeping 
Car Company, and absorbed in 1869 the Gates 
Sleeping Car Company, developed by far the widest 
and most formidable competition and continued its 
service over the longest period. The underlying 
reasons for the strength of this competition lay pri- 
marily in the fact that the Wagner cars followed 
more closely the Pullman characteristics, and in 
fact the infringement of certain basic Pullman pat- 
ents by the Wagner Company was a cause of 
frequent litigation over a period of many years. 
Webster Wagner, the founder of the Wagner Pal- 
ace Car Company, began his career as a wagon 
maker. The first cars which he constructed had 
a single tier of berths, and the bedding was packed 
away by day in a closet at the end of the car. Com- 
modore Vanderbilt backed Wagner and became 
interested in his company, a connection which gave 
Wagner invaluable assistance and a hold on the 
sleeping-car business of the lines controlled by the 

[76] 




The latest Pullman parlor car, showing simplicity of modern car 

decoration, combining quiet elegance with 

good taste and comfort 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

Vanderbilt interests, a connection which enabled 
him for many years to be a keen competitor of the 
Pullman Company. 

Early in June, 1881, suit was brought by the 
Pullman Palace Car Company against the New York 
Central Sleeping Car Company and Webster Wag- 
ner, claiming $1,000,000 damages for infringement 
and use of patents in the construction and use of 
Wagner sleeping coaches. The bill stated that in 
1870 the Wagner Company began building sleeping 
cars, and for several years its coaches ran only on 
the New York Central Railroad and its various 
branches. The company finding it impossible to 
build satisfactory cars without using the Pullman 
patents, contracted with the Pullman Company to 
use certain of its patented improvements. This ar- 
rangement was made with the distinct understanding 
that the Wagner Company was to run its cars only 
over the New York Central Railroad. For five years 
this arrangement was satisfactorily carried out. But 
in 1875 the Pullman Company's contract with the 
Michigan Central Railroad expired and the Wagner 
Company secured the contract to run the cars be- 
tween Detroit and Chicago, thus making a through 

[77] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

connection for the Vanderbilt lines between New 
York and Chicago. 

By this new routing of the Wagner cars direct 
from New York to Chicago and the elimination of the 
Pullman cars from the Chicago and Detroit service, 
an opportunity offered for some other road to avail 
itself of the Pullman service and effect a through 
Pullman service between New York and Chicago. 

The Erie was the road that grasped the oppor- 
tunity. By arrangements with the Baltimore & 
Ohio and several other roads, through Erie trains 
between New York and Chicago, comprising Pull- 
man hotel coaches, sleeping cars and drawing room 
cars were put in service on November i, 1875. A 
circular published in Chicago announcing the new 
arrangement said : 

From the first of November, the Pullman hotel and 
drawing room coaches, for many years so popular on the 
Michigan Central line, will be withdrawn from that 
route, and with new and increased improvements will 
thereafter run exclusively on the Erie and Chicago line, 
forming the first and only Pullman hotel coach line 
between Chicago and New York. 

The success of the new Erie Pullman coaches was 
immediately assured. The hotel cars especially were 
a great attraction. These were divided into two 

[78] 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

compartments, in one of which the kitchen was 
located, the other compartment being utilized as a 
sleeping car. First-class meals, including all manner 
of game and seasonable delicacies, were served on 
movable tables placed in the sections. In fact, the 
New Tork l^ribune^ in commenting on the new Pull- 
man equipment, asked: "Should the Erie have a 
monopoly of such comforts? W^hy does not Wag- 
ner imitate or improve upon Pullman?" 
These cars were nicknamed " French Flats." 

All the modern conveniences of a first-class house are 
condensed into one of these hotels on wheels. The beds 
at night are put away to make room for spacious seats 
by day, between which a table is placed, covered with 
damask cloths and napkins folded in quaint devices, at 
which four may sit with ease. The whole car — a Pull- 
man — is luxuriously fitted up, and one end is partitioned 
into a storeroom and kitchen; there is a smoking-room 
for lovers of the weed, and a separate toilet room for 
ladies. As the porter of the car blackens the boots, and 
there is a telegraph office at each stopping place, the 
waggish question of " Where is the barber shop ? " is often 
made. But this may come, too, as last summer an excur- 
sion party of ladies and gentlemen took a hair-dresser 
with them over the Erie to Niagara Falls, and two or 
three ladies actually had their hair crimped while travel- 
ing thirty or forty miles an hour! At this time, while 
game is plenty in the West, the Pullmans, with their 

[79] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

facilities, and two fast trains each way per day, are able 
to make a bill of fare and serve it in a style which would 
cause Delmonico to wring his hands in anguish. The 
service is on the European plan ; that is, you pay for what 
you order, and we give the prices of the principal articles, 
to show at what a reasonable rate one can take a superior 
meal of fifty or a hundred miles long: Prairie chicken, 
pheasant, and woodcock, whole, $i ; snipe, quail, golden 
plover and blue-winged teal, each 75 cents; venison, 60 
cents; chicken, whole, 75 cents; cold tongue, ham, and 
corned beef, 30 cents ; sardines, lobster, and broiled ham 
or bacon, 40 cents ; mutton and lamb chops, veal cutlets, or 
half a chicken, 50 cents ; sirloin steak, 50 cents, &c. Every 
traveler who has missed his dinner to catch a train will 
rejoice in knowing that a warm meal awaits him at the 
cars, and that he can wake up in the morning and choose 
his time for breakfast, instead of bolting it down at the 
twenty minutes' convenience of the railroad company.^ 

Some time prior to 1861 sleeping cars were being 
operated over the Camden & Amboy and Baltimore 
& Ohio railroads. These cars were known as 
"Knight" cars, after their designer, E. C. Knight. 
The "Knights" were built at a cost of about 
$7,000, and were regarded as the handsomest things 
on wheels. As in the bunk cars, all of which found 
their model in the sleeping arrangements of the canal 
boat, the berths were only on one side of the car and 

^New York Commercial Advertiser j Nov. 30, 1875. 
[80] 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

consisted of a triple tier of two double and one single 
berth; an arrangement later changed to one double 
and two single berths. 

The Woodruff sleeping car also was designed 
about this time by T. T. Woodruff, Master Car 
Builder of the Terre Haute & Alton Railroad. In 
this car both sides of the car were utilized as in 
the Pullman car, and the sleeping accommodations 
consisted of twelve sections, six on a side. A com- 
pany was formed to operate the Woodruff cars in 
1871, with a capital of $100,000. 

The Flower Sleeping Car Company was another 
characteristic competitor. This short-lived company 
was organized in 1882 in Bangor, Maine, with a 
capital of $500,000. The seats in this new car were 
placed in the middle instead of on the sides of the 
cars, thus leaving an aisle on each side instead of one 
in the center. Claims were made that a freer circula- 
tion of air would result, and a news item of the 
'iim.es further recommended this unique construction 
as more convenient to families, the berths being so 
arranged, side by side, that two could be made up 
into a double bed. 

Mann's Boudoir Car Company was incorporated 
[81] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

in 1883, with a capital of $1,000,000, and experi- 
enced considerable popularity due to their unique 
arrangement, which has been described in a previous 
chapter. 

In 1883 the Erie Railroad realized the long enter- 
tained ambition of entering Chicago on its own rails. 
To accomplish this, the Erie had leased the New 
York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railroad and built the 
Chicago & Atlantic. Through connection was actually 
made May 15, on which date freight traffic was 
begun. 

The train by which the Erie inaugurated the pas- 
senger business over the new trunk line was probably 
the most complete and elegant train ever to that 
time constructed. All of the cars were of Pullman 
manufacture and consisted of a baggage car, second- 
class coach, a smoking car, and first-class coaches and 
sleepers that were "models of perfection and beauty, 
as might be expected where the Pullman Company 
had carte blanche to produce the best possible." 
Each coach was lighted with the new Pintsch lights. 
The smoking car deserves more than passing men- 
tion, for it was the first one ever constructed of 
Pullman standard. The car was equipped with 

[82] 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

upholstered easy chairs, and a " refreshment buffet " 
moistened the throats of the smokers. 

Early in 1889 the Pullman Company acquired the 
control of the Mann Boudoir Car Company and the 
Woodruff Sleeping Car Company, including the en- 
tire car equipment and plants. By this acquisition 
a long step was taken for the unification of sleeping 
car service, and the further development of a uni- 
form and widely extended scope of operations. For 
years the success of the Pullman Company's service 
had been too generally acknowledged to escape the 
notice of enterprising railroad men, and these two 
companies were fair examples of the numerous com- 
peting companies that were organized. But the suc- 
cess of the Pullman service was based on an idea 
of too wide conception ever to be successfully imi- 
tated. The success of the company engendered com- 
petition; its success resulted only in a comparison 
of service injurious to the imitators. Behind all this 
lay the fundamental reason for Pullman supremacy. 
Created to give a standardized service everywhere 
for the convenience of travelers, it was quickly ap- 
parent that competition was but a reversal to the old 
order — the more companies, the less uniform service. 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

About a month previous, the Mann Boudoir Com- 
\^/ pany and the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company had 
joined hands and formed the Union Palace Car 
Company. By the purchase of this combine the 
Pullman Company added about 15,000 miles of road 
to that already operated, and by that many miles 
extended its through car service. The only remain- 
ing sleeping car companies of any importance outside 
of the Pullman Company were the Wagner Com- 
pany, belonging to the Vanderbilts, and operated 
over the Vanderbilt lines, and the Monarch Sleeping 
Car Company, which operated entirely in the New 
England States with the exception of one Ohio line. 
A newspaper of the time commented on the merger, 
and closed with the verdict: "While this will add 
to the volume of the Pullman business, it will also 
render the service upon the absorbed lines far more 
efficient and satisfactory for the traveling public." 

In 1888, Mr. Pullman had put in operation his 
vestibule trains, which immediately met with ex- 
traordinary favor and patronage. In a very few 
days the Wagner Company also advertised a vesti- 
bule train and were promptly met with an injunction 
holding the Wagner appliances to be an infringe- 

[84] 




The first step in the building of the car. The center construction 
in position, and the framework assembled 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 

ment of the Pullman patent. After another hearing, 
the injunction was superseded, the Wagner Company 
giving an unlimited bond, signed by the Vander- 
bilts, to pay any damages ascertained by the courts. 
After months occupied in taking the evidence of 
travelers, expert mechanics, railroad officials, promi- 
nent citizens, and others, a final hearing was had. 
The judges, ow.'ng to the vast interests involved and 
the legal difficulties presented, took ample time for 
consideration, but finally adhered to their first con- 
clusion. The main feature of the Pullman vestibule 
system was the Sessions patent, without which the 
vestibule system was worthless. The court declared 
this invention to be of the highest order of utility, 
not only as shown by the testimony in the case and 
the adoption of the patent by the principal railroads 
of the country, but also by the acts of the Wagner 
Company in appropriating the device, and in the 
tenacity with which they clung to it in the courts 
under an immense bond for any damages to result, 
and so, in April, 1889, the United States Circuit 
Court delivered its opinion in favor of the Pullman 
Palace Car Company in its long and stubborn fight 
with the Wagner Palace Car Company. 

[85] 



VI 
The Town of Pullman 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TOWN OF PULLMAN 

I IKE most Other industries, the Pullman Palace 
-' Car Company felt the effect of the financial 
depression immediately following 1873, but the re- 
action followed, and on the resumption of specie 
payments in 1879 dawned a new era in the Com- 
pany's history and a rapid expansion of its business. 
To meet this expansion and to extend the business 
still farther along the line of general car building, 
it became necessary to enlarge the plant. The shops 
already established in St. Louis, Detroit, Elmira, 
and Wilmington were unable to provide the volume 
required by the increasing demand for the Com- 
pany's output. It was evident that new shops must 
be built on a larger and more comprehensive scale 
than any that had gone before. 

In 1879 the Chicago newspapers were alert to con- 
firm the rumor that George M. Pullman was plan- 
ning to locate his new shops at Chicago. The 
following year the rumor became fact and the ques- 

[89] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

tion of the exact location became of paramount 
interest. 

Chicago with its central position with. reference 
to the railway systems of the continent, seemed the 
natural site, but there were weighty objections, 
touching both finance and the matter of labor, to be 
urged against building within the city limits proper. 
Sites were visited by representatives of the Company 
at Hinsdale, Illinois, and Wolf Lake, Indiana, but 
in April it was definitely announced that the works 
would be located on the Illinois Central Railroad on 
the shore of Lake Calumet. A Chicago newspaper 
commented on the decision of the Company as fol- 
lows: 

A notable addition to Chicago's mercantile industry is 
to be the extensive car works of the Pullman Palace Car 
Company, ground for which is to be broken today. A 
larger establishment for manufacturing purposes will not 
exist in the West, and while it will contain all the latest 
and most improved mechanical appliances in use, it will 
embody in its architecture grace and beauty that is quite 
characteristic of the palace car. The works are to cost 
$1,000,000; about 2,000 men are to be employed in them, 
and the extended arrangement of machinery is to be 
moved by the Corliss engine, one of the Centennial won- 
ders, which has been purchased by the Pullmans. 

[90] 




9. a 



< 



,- o 



fe 



THE TOWN OF PULLMAN 



An interesting personal reminiscence of this famous 
real estate operation may be found in Frederick 
Francis Cook's Bygone Days in Chicago. 

Another " Pullman scoop " was of an extraordinary 
real-estate and manufacturing interest when " nego- 
tiated" — the slang to be accepted for once in its proper 
meaning. In the later seventies, besides other duties, I 
had charge of the real-estate department of the Times. 
It became known that the Pullman Company intended to 
build a manufacturing town somewhere, but whether in 
the environs of Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, or other 
western point, was for the public an open question for 
many months — and, I dare say, for a time was an unset- 
tled proposition with the company itself, for St. Louis 
offered large inducements in the way of land grants. 
What finally turned the scales in favor of Chicago, 
according to Mr. Pullman's declaration to me, was the 
more favorable climatic conditions presented by Chicago. 
It was his contention that during the summer a man 
could do at least ten per cent more work near Lake Michi- 
gan than in the Aiississippi Valley in the latitude of 
St. Louis. 

During many disturbing weeks — for the whole real- 
estate market in at least three cities waited on the deci- 
sion — frequent announcements were made that the 
directors of the company, or its committee on site, had 
inspected this locality, or that, in the vicinity of one city 
or another, and so the wearisome time went on. Many 
places were visited about Chicago — some to the north, 
some on the Desplaines, some in the neighborhood of the 

[91] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Canal, but somehow none near Calumet Lake, a fact 
which finally aroused my suspicions. In the meantime, 
unverifiable reports of large transactions in that locality 
floated about in real-estate circles. Finally, I pinned 
down an actual sale of large dimensions, with Colonel 
" Jim " Bowen as the ostensible purchaser. That opened 
my eyes, for the colonel's circumstances at this time put 
such a transaction on his own account altogether out of 
the question. 

Almost daily at this time Mr. Pullman was inter- 
viewed on the situation by the real-estate newspaper 
phalanx — Henry D. Lloyd was then in charge for the 
Tribune — but ** nothing decided," was the stereotyped 
reply. By and by I discovered that almost invariably if 
I went at a certain hour, " Colonel Jim " would be largely 
in evidence about the Pullman headquarters, with an air 
of doing a "land-office business," and, as it turned out, 
he was actually doing something very much like it. 
Slowly I picked up clue after clue, pieced this to that, 
and one day felt in a position to say to Mr. Pullman that 
I had located the site. He seemed amused, and laugh- 
ingly replied that he was pleased to hear it, as it would 
save the committee on site a lot of trouble ; and, as some 
of them were that very day looking at a Desplaines River 
site near Riverside — a trip most ostentatiously adver- 
tised in advance — he thought he would telegraph them 
to stop looking, and come back to town. 

It was always a pleasure to interview Mr. Pullman, for 
he had a way of making you feel at ease, and I entered 
heartily into the humor of his jocularity. But, as in a 
bantering way, I let out link after link of my chain of 
evidence, he became more and more serious, and finally-— 

[92] 



THE TOWN OF PULLMAN 



without committing himself, however — took the ground 
that even if true, in view of the importance of their plans, 
no paper having the good of Chicago at heart ought by 
premature publication to interfere with them. He 
pressed this point more and more, and finally made frank 
confession that I was on the right track, by acknowledg- 
ing that they had already bought many hundreds of 
acres, were negotiating for many hundreds more which 
would be advanced to prohibitive prices by publication, 
and the whole scheme would thus be wrecked. On the 
other hand, if I withheld publication, he promised that I 
should have the matter exclusively — the whole vast 
improvement scheme, unique plan of administration, etc. 
As there was the danger in waiting that one of my rivals 
might get hold of the facts, exploit them, and thus turn 
the tables on me, I replied that the matter was of too 
great moment for me to take the responsibility of holding 
the news, and that I should have to consult Mr. Storey. 
It happened that Mr. Storey had invested quite exten- 
sively in South Side boulevard property; and, as a great 
improvement southward could not fail to add to the value 
of his holding, and there was the further prospect of a 
more complete exclusive account later than was possible 
with my skeleton information, he gave a ready assent. 

The town of Pullman meant far more in the mind 
of its founder than a mere industrial establishment. 
The dreary, water-soaked prairie was raised to high, 
dry land; an entire town was planned and blocked 
out following Mr. Pullman's own design. Architects 

[93] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

and landscape architects worked together to carry 
out the plan to a harmonious and pleasing fulfill- 
ment. Among the more prominent details of this 
vast work were included a system by which the 
sewage of the town was collected and pumped far 
away to the Pullman produce farm; the equipment 
of every house and flat regardless of rental with the 
most modern appliances of water, gas, and plumbing; 
the establishment of athletic fields ; the concentration 
of the merchandising of the town under the glass 
roof of the central arcade building, and the construc- 
tion of a handsome market house, a fine schoolhouse 
to accommodate a thousand pupils, a library contain- 
ing over 8,000 volumes, a savings bank and a large 
and artistically decorated theater. The population 
of Pullman in January, 1881, counted four souls. 
In' February, 1882, there were 2,084 inhabitants, a 
total which had increased to 8,203 by September, 
1884. 

A contemporary writer closes an enthusiastic de- 
scription of the town of Pullman with the following 
paragraph : 

Imagine a perfectly equipped town of 12,000 inhabi- 
tants, built out from one central thought to a beautiful 

[94] 




Preparing the steel frame for the upper section of a PuHman 
sleeping car 




Sand blasting the brass trimmings of the car before applying 
the finish 



THE TOWN OF PULLMAN 



and harmonious whole. A town that is bordered with 
bright beds of flowers and green velvety stretches of 
lawn; that is shaded with trees and dotted with parks 
and pretty water vistas^ and glimpses here and there of 
artistic sweeps of landscape gardening; a town where 
the homes, even to the most modest, are bright and whole- 
some and filled with pure air and light; a town, in a 
word, where all that is ugly, and discordant, and demora- 
lizing, is eliminated, and all that inspires to self-respect, 
to thrift and to cleanliness of person and of thought is 
generously provided. Imagine all this, and try to picture 
the empty, sodden morass out of which this beautiful 
vision was reared, and you will then have some idea of 
the splendid work, in its physical aspects at least, which 
the far-reaching plan of Mr. Pullman has wrought.^ 

1 The Story of Pullman, prepared for distribution at the 
World's Fair, 1893, 



[95] 



VII 

Inventions and Improvements 



CHAPTER VII 

INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

THE invention of the folding upper berth com- 
bination by Mr. Pullman was the first of many 
contributions by himself, and in later years by the 
Pullman Company and those associated with it, to the 
development of railway travel. Sleeping cars for 
a number of years had given night accommodations 
to travelers; there was nothing new in the idea that 
a night journey required sleeping accommodations. 
But in the new and radical berth construction de- 
vised by Mr. Pullman lay the difference between 
impracticability and practicability — between dis- 
comfort and luxury. 

The earliest sleeping cars were mere bunk cars in 
which the male passengers might recline during the 
night hours. Later, bedding was furnished, but the 
necessity of storing it by day in a closet at the end 
of the cars created a situation in which order and 
cleanliness were far from practicable. By the Pull- 
man invention, however, all this was changed. A 

[99] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

type of car was developed that was not only com- 
fortable and convenient for day travel, but one that 
might be quickly transformed into a comfortable 
sleeping apartment. Furthermore, the new upper 
berth construction made it possible to pack away by 
day the entire bedding, mattresses, curtains, and 
partitions necessary to convert each section into a 
double sleeping apartment. 

With this simple mechanical innovation the in- 
ventor combined an idea characterized by a breadth 
of vision that ranks with the great ideas of the cen- 
tury. In few words, he conceived the thought that 
it would be possible at one stroke to supplant the 
inadequate and inefficient service of the day with a 
new service so complete in its comforts and con- 
veniences that no one might express a wish that the 
service might be unable to fulfill. 

It is Interesting, in passing, to consider the fact 
that up to the development of the Pullman car, 
night trains were patronized exclusively by men, for 
no woman would have considered subjecting herself 
to the inconvenience and lack of privacy of the 
ordinary sleeping car. The development of the Pull- 
man car and Pullman service made continuous day 

[ 100 ] 




View of machine section. Steel Erecting Shops 




Fitting up the steel car underframe. Steel Erecting Shops 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

and night travel practical for women and children; 
it created the comforts and privacies they naturally 
required. To be sure it was several years before the 
new order of things received general recognition, but 
the public quickly caught on. " Travel by Pullman " 
soon became a popular diversion. 

The story of the early years of the Pullman sleep- 
ing car has been told in the foregoing chapters. Due 
in large measure to the comfort and convenience of 
the cars, continuous travel lengthened, and at once 
arose the necessity for eating as well as sleeping 
accommodations on the through long-distance trains. 

For a number of years foreign travelers in America 
had praised the elaborate restaurant service afforded 
by certain station eating-houses. Towns developed 
keen rivalry in respect to the meals provided by their 
station "counters," and the station restaurants of 
certain towns developed among constant travelers a 
reputation for unusual culinary excellence. Our 
fathers will doubtless recall the glorious fame of 
dining rooms at Poughkeepsie, Springfield, and Al- 
toona, and of certain dishes that enjoyed nation-wide 
reputation and might be had only at this or that par- 
ticular station restaurant. 

[ loi ] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

But, on the other hand, the uninviting, indigestible 
nature of the so-called refreshment offered at some 
railway eating stations had long been a byword. In 
most sections of the country it was practically im- 
possible to procure a respectable meal or lunch while 
traveling. Railway officials had wrestled with the 
subject in vain. Recognizing the fact that the heart 
of the railway traveler is most susceptible to in- 
fluences reaching it by way of his stomach, they 
made repeated and continued endeavors to improve 
the fare offered during the "twenty minutes for 
dinner " stops. With a few exceptions the results 
were not encouraging, and the traveling public con- 
tinued its dyspeptic round three times a day. 

The station eating-house was on an unsound basis, 
and its disadvantages were obvious. With the in- 
crease of the speed of through trains and the demand 
for shorter running times between terminals it be- 
came quickly apparent that a train could not be 
stopped three times a day to permit the passengers 
to gorge a hasty meal at the station restaurant. 
Three meals at a minimum of twenty minutes each 
was an hour lost, and twenty minutes for eating 
was as bad for the passenger as it was for the running 

[102] 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

time of the trains. There were still other disad- 
vantages. In addition to the delay of the train and 
the tax on the passenger's digestion, there was the 
frequent discomfort of wet or wintry weather. On 
a fine day it was well enough to " stretch one's legs," 
but in rain or snow the tri-daily evacuation of the 
car was a decidedly unpopular feature. 

The installation of "hotel-car" service by the 
Pullman Company sang the knell of the station 
eating-counter. The "President," a car combining 
sleeping and eating accommodations, was put in 
service in 1867 on the Grand Trunk Railway, then 
the Great Western of Canada. Its instant success 
necessitated the building of the "Kalamazoo" and 
"Western World," and in the years immediately fol- 
lowing many hotel cars were put in service. 

The second step in the evolution was inevitable. 
At best, the hotel car was only a sleeping car with 
restaurant accommodations. Eating and sleeping 
have never been associated in the modern mind; 
there must be a separate place for each. 

To meet the demand, or rather to anticipate a de- 
mand which his keen eyes foresaw, Mr. Pullman set 
himself to the task of developing a car which would 

[103] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

be only a dining car, serving no other purpose, and 
practical for operation in conjunction with through 
trains of the fastest speed. The first real dining 
car which Mr. Pullman constructed was aptly named 
the " Delmonico." It was a complete restaurant 
with a large kitchen and pantries at one end. The 
main body of the car was fitted up as a dining room 
in which the passengers from all the cars of the train 
could enter and take their meals with entire comfort. 
The " Delmonico" was put in regular service in 1868 
on the Chicago & Alton, and otlier Pullman diners 
were added the same year. At about the same time 
the Michigan Central and the Chicago, Burlington 
& Quincy Railroads also began to operate dining 
cars on their trains. To the Chicago & Alton, how- 
ever, belongs the honor of having first inaugurated 
the dining-car S5'Stem. The Michigan Central and 
Burlington did not put on dining cars until 1875. 
The Chicago & Alton dining cars were run between 
Chicago and St. Louis, and were constructed and 
managed by Mr. Pullman. The price for a meal 
was $1.00. Later the Alton acquired an interest 
in the dining cars, and finally assumed full control 
of them. 

[104] 




Making the cushions for the seats. Upholstery Department 




Making the chairs for the parlor cars. Upholstery Department 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

Although founded and developed, and for a num- 
ber of years successfully operated by the Pullman 
Company, the dining car is no longer under its man- 
agement. Due primarily to the vast increase in this 
particular share of the business and the variety of 
service required by travelers in different sections of 
the country, it became advisable to turn over to the 
various roads the details of catering to their par- 
ticular patrons. On some of the leading railroads 
the highest type of dining-car service is maintained 
and advertised as a particular feature. On other 
roads of lesser prominence a corresponding degree of 
service may be found. It is, perhaps, unfortunate 
from the point of view of the traveler that the Pull- 
man Company found it necessary to discontinue a 
service that it had so auspiciously inaugurated. 

The installation of dining-car service immediately 
drew attention to a serious defect in railway train 
construction that had previously escaped notice, a 
defect which was the more apparent in comparison 
with the relatively high development of other fea- 
tures of train construction. By the adoption of the 
dining car it became necessary for the passengers to 
pass from car to car across the platform while the 

[105] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

train was in motion, and often during a condition 
of rain and snow which added discomfort to actual 
danger. Where the crossing of platforms while the 
train was in motion had formerly been prohibited, 
the railroads were now forced to encourage pas- 
sengers to subject themselves to this dangerous pro- 
cedure in order that they might avail themselves of 
the convenience of the dining cars. 

Attempts had been made at different times to pro- 
vide a safe and covered passageway between the cars, 
especially on fast express trains, but nothing of a 
practical nature had resulted. In 1852 and 1855 
patents were taken out for canvas devices to connect 
adjoining cars and create a passage way between 
them. These appliances were installed in 1857 on 
a train on the Naugatuck Railroad, in Connecticut, 
but soon proved to be of little practical use and were 
abandoned several years later. 

But in 1886 Mr. Pullman, realizing the handicap 
of existing conditions to the full enjoyment of the 
various types of cars which he had established, set 
himself to the solving of the problem by devising a 
perfect system for constructing continuous trains and 
at the same time providing sufficient flexibility in the 

[106] 




The frame end posts for Pullman standard cars are made in this 
section of the shops 




The assembling of the steel car partitions is shown in this picture 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

connecting passage ways to allow for the motion of 
the train, particularly when rounding curves. The 
result of his efforts combined with those of his asso- 
ciates was the complete solution of the problem and 
the establishment of the "vestibule" train, prac- 
tically as it exists today. The vestibule patent was 
granted to Mr. H. H. Sessions, of the Pullman Com- 
pany, and covered many important features, and 
particularly the arrangement of the springs which 
kept the cars in line in a vertical plane. 

The vestibule was patented in 1887. By its ap- 
plication the appearance of the train as a unit was 
materially increased, but of far greater importance 
was the contribution which it made to safety. Not 
only did the enclosed vestibule afford protection to 
passengers crossing the platform from one car to an- 
other, but the entire vestibule construction imme- 
diately gave greater safety in case of wreck by 
preventing one platform from "riding" the other 
and producing a telescoping of the cars. 

The vestibule as designed and patented did not 
extend to the full width of the car. It consisted of 
elastic diaphragms on steel frames attached to the 
ends of the cars, the faces of the diaphragms when 

[107] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



the train was made up, pressing firmly against each 
other by powerful spiral springs which held them in 
position. A further advantage of the vestibule was 




The vestibule was invented by George M. Pullman. This 
illustration shows its earliest form which extended only to the width 
of the doorway of the car. In 1893 it was extended to the full 
width of the car, 

fioSl 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

the almost entire elimination of the oscillation of 
the cars. 

The first vestibuled trains were put in service in 
April, 1887, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and in a 
few years were adopted by every railroad using Pull- 
man equipment. In 1893 the vestibule was re- 
designed to enclose the entire platform by means of 
a drop which lowered over the stair openings, thus 
increasing the roominess of the car and utilizing 
every inch of possible space. 

In the Railway Review of April 16, 1887, occurs 
an Interesting description of the first " solid-vesti- 
buled" train. For a number of months following, 
this radical innovation was widely recognized by the 
press throughout the country, and Pullman vesti- 
buled cars were advertised by the railroads on which 
they were operated. We quote in part from the 
article in the Railway Reviezv: 

This week there was turned out of the Pullman works, 
at Pullman, 111., a train of three sleepers, one dining car, 
and one combination baggage and smoker, that for per- 
fection, in detail of manufacture and ornament, and in 
completeness of comfort and luxury, is unquestionably 
far ahead of any train ever before made up. This train 
was on public exhibition for a few days at Chicago, and on 

[109] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



Friday was taken on its christening trip, over a short run 
on the Illinois Central Railroad. The train is intended 
for " Limited " service on the Pennsylvania system. 

The trial trip was a success in every way. The train 
went to Otto, a short distance south of Kankakee, sixty 
miles from Chicago. There it was reversed on a Y, and 
an opportunity afforded of witnessing its operation on a 
sharp curve. The action of the flexible connection of the 
vestibules was perfect. On the return trip the train was 
run at a high rate of speed, and it was evident that the 
cars were held very firmly together, by the springs at the 
top of the vestibules, and that there was much less jarring 
and swaying than is usual even on a very level track. 

The list of business men and railroad managers 
who made up the party indicates the importance of 
the occasion. It included: 



sGeorge M. Pull- 
man 
G. F. Brown 
T. H. Wickes 
C. H. Chappell 
J. J. Janes 
Orson Smith 



W. P. Nixon 
John M. Clark 
A. C. Bartlett 
J. W. Hambleton 
E. L. Brewster 
Henry S. Boutell 
D. B. Fiske 



O. W. Pottel'^^..^^^ Willard A. Smith 
W. T. Baker ^^tephen F. Gale 



H. R. Hobart 
A. N. Eddy 
-Jesse Spalding 
Frederick 
Broughton 



Edson Keith 
O. S. A. Sprague 
A. B. Pullman 
J. T. Lestef""~"~" 
H.J.MacFarland 

[no] 



S. W. Doane 
Murray Nelson 
A. H. Burley 
C. K. Offield 
E. T. Jeffery 
Prof. Swing 
W. K. Sullivan 
W. K. Ackerman 
A. C. Thomas 
J. McGregor 

Adams 
J. F. Studebaker 
•p. E. Studebaker 
T. B. Blackstone 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

Rev. S. J. Mc- A. A. Sprague D. S. Wegg 

Pherson P. L. Yoe F. N. Finney 

C. S. Tuckerman A. F. Seeberger 

During the days in which the train was exhibited 
at Van Buren street, Chicago, it was visited by ap- 
proximately 20,000 people. The article continues : 

This fact shows that the public has a deep interest in 
improvements in traveling conveniences. We do not 
remember that any previous invention or improvement 
has ever excited such general public interest. Mr. Pull- 
man has again struck the popular chord. 

The first vestibule train to the land of the Aztecs, 
the "Montezuma Special," was naturally of Pull- 
man construction, and began regular tri-monthly 
trips from New Orleans to the City of Mexico and 
return, via the Southern Pacific, Mexican Interna- 
tional, and Mexican Central Railway, on February 
7, 1889. Four magnificent cars, electrically lighted, 
comprised the train. The initial trip of 1,835 nniles 
was made in about seventy-one hours, and on its 
arrival in the City of Mexico a banquet was given 
to President Diaz and his cabinet to signalize the 
advent of the first international vestibule train into 
the capital of Mexico. 

[in] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

The lighting of railway cars shows an interesting 
evolution. Undoubtedly candles were used at the 
earliest period, but the use of oil dates back beyond 
the birthday of the Pullman car. Oil lamps, at best, 
were a poor substitute for the light of day. Casting 
a dim, yellow light, flickering in every draught, 
smelling and smoking when not properly cared for, 
and vitiating the car atmosphere, it was small wonder 
that the public showed prompt appreciation of the 
first substitute that was provided. 

The brilliant Pintsch light, which for a number 
of years had had wide use in Europe, was first intro- 
duced into America by the Pullman Company on the 
crack Erie train in the through New York-Chicago 
service in 1883. The gas used for these lights was 
of high candle power and was manufactured from 
petroleum. As a car illuminant it has held its own 
almost to the present day. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the part played by 
the Pullman Company in the development of electric 
lighting of cars. Without its inspired initiative and 
its vast resources for practical and costly experiment 
it is fair to believe that electricity would not have 
been successfully utilized for this purpose for many 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

years. The Railroad Gazette of January 25, 1889, 
expresses this thought : 

Without extended experiments we can scarcely hope 
to develop a good system of electric lighting for railroad 
service. Such experiments are rather expensive, and it is 
only by the co-operation of liberal-minded managers that 
anything like a perfect system can be expected in a rea- 
sonable time. The Pullman Company has great confi- 
dence in the success of electric lighting, and therefore, in 
spite of the annoyance and expense of the present system, 
expresses a determination to use it, expecting that some- 
thing better will result in the near future from^ the 
extended experience now being obtained. 

Although the incandescent electric lamp was intro- 
duced by Edison in 1879, following by two years 
the introduction by Brush of the arc lamp, it was 
on an English railway in an American Pullman car 
supplied with electricity by French accumulator cells 
that the electric light on October 14, 1881 5 barely 
fifty years from the first suggestion of the iron horse 
by Stephenson, cast its brilliant light for the first 
time in a railway carriage. 

The trial was made in a Pullman car, forming 
part of a special train on the Brighton Railway. A 
number of officials of the road, a representative of 
the Pullman Company, and Mr. F. A. Pincaffs and 

[113] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Mr. Lachlan of the Faure Accumulator Company 
composed the party, and at 3:25 the train pulled 
out of the Victoria Station for Brighton. 

Only a few months before, Mr. Faure had sent to 
Sir William Thomson his little box of lead plates 
coated with red oxide and fully charged with elec- 
tricity. The great physicist saw at once its possi- 
bilities, and in a relatively short time inventors were 
developing countless applications of the new wonder. 
Its application to car lighting was an important test. 

The Pullman car on which this first experiment 
was made, carried beneath it on a shelf some thirty- 
two small metal boxes or cells, each containing lead 
plates coated with oxide. Stored in these cells was 
the power to light the car. It was nothing more than 
the most elementary storage battery, a far cry from 
the compact batteries of today and the massive gen- 
erator swung beneath the floor of the modern car. 

All the previous night a steam engine had created 
power to charge the cells. In the roof of the car 
were twelve small Edison incandescent lights with 
bamboo filaments. The light was uneven; it was 
"garish," but at the turn of a switch its rays filled 
the car. With pardonable enthusiasm the London 

[114] 




p 



H 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 



'T'imes stated that "the car on the return journey in 
the evening was kept lighted the whole of the dis- 
tance from Brighton to Victoria." 

It is interesting to read in the hondon Daily tele- 
graph of October 15, 1885, the following mention 
of this important event: 

Yesterday's trial was understood to have special refer- 
ence, however, to a new train, wholly composed of Pull- 
man cars, which it is proposed shortly to put on the 
service between Victoria and Brighton, and should the 
experiment be deemed fully satisfactory it is probable 
that the new train will from the first be fitted with the 
electric light. So far as the travelers were concerned the 
result was eminently successful. It would scarcely be 
possible to conceive a steadier, more equable, or more 
agreeable light. On the down journey the first trial was 
made in the Merstham tunnel, and then in the Balcombe 
and Clayton tunnels. All that was needed was to move 
the little switch, and instantaneously the delicate carbon 
thread enclosed in the lamps was aglow with pure white 
light. The return journey was made in the night, and 
the electric lamps were alight during the whole distance. 
There had been some question whether the supply would 
prove sufficient, as owing to stoppages the special had 
taken a somewhat longer time than had been allowed for ; 
the event, however, showed that the storage had been 
ample. It would be possible to generate electricity by the 
energy of the moving train itself, and this has indeed 
been suggested to be done. By this means enough energy 

[115] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

could be supplied to the incandescent lamps, but in any 
case the accumulator would be necessary to act as a reser- 
voir when the train was not in motion. It possesses, how- 
ever, another advantage equally important. Experience 
shows that a current of absolutely uniform strength sup- 
plying an even and constant light can only be derived 
from stored electricity. The oxide of lead which covers 
the plates not only prevents leakage, but enables the 
supply to be withdrawn with perfect regularity, and ren- 
ders sub-division easy. Yesterday the smoke room and 
lavatory of the car were lighted, and occasionally the 
lights were turned off without in any way interfering with 
the other lamps in the same circuit. Before the train 
started on the return journey the brightly illuminated 
carriage was an object of interest to many members of 
the Iron and Steel Institute who visited Brighton and 
Newhaven yesterday. With regard to expense, it is 
claimed for the accumulator and the incandescent lamps 
that the expenditure would be decidedly less than on 
oil, while, as to the comparative value of the two there 
is no room for difference of opinion. It was the general 
feeling of all who took part in the excursion that the 
question of the electric lighting of trains had been solved, 
and that to the Brighton Company, whatever may be the 
immediate results of the experiment, would belong the 
honour of taking the first decisive and practical step in 
the way of reform. 

Four months later a correspondent of a Sheffield, 
England, paper, writing from London to the Rail- 
way Review of the recent trial of electric lights on 

[ii6] 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

the Pullman train of the London, Brighton & South 
Coast Railway, says: 

There is no doubt whatever on the point that this, 
apart from the question of cost, is a decided success. 
It is easily manageable, and diffuses through the train a 
pleasant, equable light, scarcely less agreeable than day- 
light. It is turned on and off with instantaneous effect 
as the train enters and leaves a tunnel, and of course is 
kept burning the whole of the time during the night 
journeys. The electricity is stored in a number of lead 
plates, which are kept in water in iron boxes in the 
guard's van. There are two lots, one at either end of the 
train, and two mechanics in charge of them. This dis- 
covery of the ability to store electricity for application 
to lighting purposes seems to carry the discovery farther 
than anything since it was first introduced. It gets over 
many difficulties which seemed insuperable — especially 
the important one of the great waste of power which is 
illustrated every night at the Savoy Theatre — and would 
be applicable to the introduction of electricity for house- 
hold use. 

At the Savoy, when the exigencies of the play require 
that the lights should be turned down in the auditorium, 
there is no cessation of the enormous power required to 
produce the full effect. What happens is that by a 
mechanical contrivance, the electricity is carried off from 
the light and goes to waste. With this system of storing, 
electricity can be used just like gas, as much or as little 
as people chance to want. Another great advantage is the 
freedom from jumping, inseparable from the action of 

[117] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

the driving power of the steam engine, or of the motion 
power of water. The lights of the Brighton train burn 
just as steadily as gas, an effect not in any way obtained 
where the light is maintained directly by the driving 
power of steam. 

But after all, the question of gas vs. electricity will 
resolve itself into one of cost, and it is here where gas 
will inevitably hold its own. The fundamental principle 
of the electric light is that for a given exertion of power 
you obtain a given proportion of light, neither more nor 
less. For every hour it is burning there will be required 
a certain exactly-ascertained proportion of revolutions of 
the steam engine, and therefore, if the whole town is 
lighted it can be done only at a strictly proportionate 
expense to the lighting of a single house. As to what that 
expense will be, as compared with gas, the Brighton train 
would, if we had an idea of the actual figures, afford a 
precise means of information. I met on the train a well- 
known gas engineer, attracted, like myself, by the novelty 
of the experiment. What the electric light cost he was 
not able to say, but when we take into account the capital 
sunk in plant, involving a steam engine with the necessary 
buildings, consumption of coal and necessary employment 
of skilled labor, it must be something considerable. 
Against this is the bare fact that the Brighton train could 
be lighted with gas for the double journey at the cost of 
lod. It is a physical impossibility that electricity should 
ever come anywhere near this, and that probably explains 
the singular phenomenon that at the time when electricity 
is making conspicuous advances in public favor, the value 
of gas shares is not only steadily maintained, but is actu- 
ally rising in the market. 

[ii8] 




The steel parts used for interior car finish are all standardized, 
and are formed by powerful presses 




Another large press at work on the forming of steel shapes for 
the interior framing of the cars 



INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS 

The present method of heating an entire train with 
steam from the locomotive was satisfactorily tested 
out in the winter of 1887, and was generally adopted 
the following year. By this improved system the 
individual heaters in each car were abolished, and 
a source of much discomfort and complaint was 
removed. The Pullman cars were immediately 
altered to benefit by the new system. 



[119] 



VIII 
How the Cars are Made 



CHAPTER VIII 

HOW THE CARS ARE MADE 

IN former chapters has been told the story of the 
birth of the Pullman car and its development 
through the various phases of its evolution. Gen- 
erally speaking, this evolution for the first forty 
years was characterized chiefly by the addition, at 
one time or another, of certain inventions and im- 
provements, such as the electric light and the ves- 
tibule, and by a changing style of interior decoration 
conforming to contemporary fashions. But at no 
time is recorded a change in the basic idea of car 
construction that can in any measure compare with 
the revolutionizing change which was recorded in 
1908 by the construction of the first "all-steel" 
Pullman car. 

For a number of years steel sills and under frames 
had furnished a staunch foundation for all cars man- 
ufactured by the Pullman Company for its opera- 
tion. Further strengthened by steel vestibules, it is 
to be doubted if the all-steel car offered any very 

[123] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

material increase in the safety already afforded to 
the passengers. But the change which the steel car 
brought in the process of manufacture was radical in 
the extreme. The first Pullman cars, and in fact 
every car up to and through the nineties, was of all-- 
wood construction. Wood-making machinery filled 
the great shops at Pullman ; carpenters and cabinet- 
makers numbered a big percentage of the pay roll. 
It was a wood-working industry. At one fell stroke 
the old order changed to the new. The songs of the 
band-saw and the planer were stilled and in their 
stead rose the metallic clamor of steam hammer and 
turret lathe, and the endless staccato reverberation 
of an army of riveters. Ponderous machines to bend, 
twist, or cut a bar or sheet of steel filled the vast 
workrooms. An army of steel workers, Titans of 
the past reborn to fulfill a modern destiny, fanned 
the flames in their furnaces and released the leash 
of sand blast, air hose, and gas flame. 

But fascinating as unquestionably was the work 
of the patient artisans who inlaid the beflowered 
Eastlake Pullman or the Moorish cars of another 
day, there is equal romance in the product of the 
modern worker who builds these rolling hostelries 

[ 124 ] 










U5 y2 



be C 



a ^ 



cj C 



HOW THE CARS ARE MADE 

of steel. Under the high glass roof the tumult of 
ponderous machines fills the air with pandemonium. 
At one side of one of the main aisles a half dozen 
great steel girders, like keels for giant ships, lie on 
the floor. These are the mighty box girders, eighty- 
one feet in length and weighing over nine tons each, 
which will form the backbone of future Pullmans. 
To each of these girders, or sills, are riveted plates, 
angles, and steel castings which extend the full 
length of the car and platforms, as well as floor 
beams, cross bearers, bolsters, and end sills of pressed 
steel. On this foundation the side sills are riveted, 
steel beams that run the entire length of the car. 

When this gray mass of steel is finally riveted 
together with its coverplates, tieplates, and floor- 
plates, the underframe of the car is completed — an 
almost indestructible foundation which alone weighs 
27,365 pounds. On this underframe the superstruc- 
ture or frame is erected to form the body of the 
car. This frame is composed of pressed steel posts 
and plates forming for each side a complete girder 
which would by itself alone carry the entire weight 
of the loaded car. 

The roof deck is separately assembled, and as soon 
[125] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

as the superstructure of the car is ready it is swung 
up by a crane and dropped into place. Like the rest 
of the car, the roof is of steel, braced and riveted 
to defy the greatest possible strains. The ends and 
vestibules are now built on, piece by piece, until the 
skeleton of the car is complete. The vestibules are 
particularly imposing, for on each side, framing the 
side doors through which the passengers enter 
the car, are giant beams of steel so built into the 
construction of the frame that only under most 
extraordinary circumstances could the force of a col- 
lision crush the vestibule or the car behind it. 

The trucks which carry this tremendous burden 
of steel are marvels of strength and. efficiency. Each 
of the two trucks has six steel wheels weighing nine 
hundred pounds apiece. Added to this is the weight 
of the three six hundred pound axles, the two steel 
castings which form the framework for the trucks 
together with the bolsters, springs, equalizers, and 
brake equipment — a total weight of 42,000 pounds 
for the trucks alone, contributed to the total weight 
of the car. 

The car is now subjected to a thorough sand- 
blasting, a process that removes every particle of 

[126] 




Riveting the underframe 





The steel end posts in position, providing strongest possible 
protection in case of collision 



HOW THE CARS ARE MADE 

scale, grease, or dirt and leaves the steel in perfect 
condition to receive the first coat of paint and the 
insulation. To the passenger, the presence of the 
steel construction is apparent, but the insulation, 
which forms a vital factor in the car's construction, 
can be seen only during the process of building. 
Composed of a combination of cement, hair, and as- 
bestos, this insulating material is packed into every 
cubic inch of space between the inner and outer shells 
of the roof and sides, forming a perfect non-con- 
ductor to protect the passengers against the biting 
cold of winter or the heat of summer sunshine. A 
similar cement preparation is next laid on the floor, 
combining the quality of a non-conductor of heat 
and cold with sanitary qualities invaluable as an aid 
in maintaining the cars in a strictly sanitary condi- 
tion. 

At this point in the construction the car is turned 
over to the steamfitters, plumbers, and electricians, 
who perform their work with the skill and dispatch 
bred of a long familiarity with the particular require- 
ments of car construction. To see the Pullman car 
at this stage is to see a network of steam-pipes and 
electric conduit lacing in and out between the gaunt 

[127] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

steel frame of the car, and everywhere the white 
plaster-like insulation packed into every cavity. As 
soon as these gangs of workmen have finished, other 
workers fit into place the interior panel plates, parti- 
tions, lockers, and seat frames, and the car instantly 
assumes a new and almost completed aspect. Mean- 
while the painters have completed their work on the 
exterior of the car and begin the finer finish of the 
interior. Here coat upon coat is laid, and after each 
coat laborious rubbing to give the required finish. 
The graining, by which various woods are so faith- 
fully imitated, is then applied, and last the var- 
nishing. 

The car is now completed with the exception of 
the fittings. A gang of men hang curtains in the 
doors and windows; the upholsterers contribute the 
carpets, cushions, mattresses, and blankets; the vari- 
ous little fixtures are added, and the car is finished. 
Steel! Veritably! One man can trundle in a single 
wheelbarrow all the wood that has gone into its 
construction. 

Rich Brewster green, the new paint gleaming in 
the sunlight, a long line of these seventy-ton steel 
mile-a-minute hostelries are waiting for the hour 

[128] 




Type of wood-frame truck used on early cars ; four wheels only, 
with a big rubber block over each in place of springs 




Modern cast-steel truck; six wheels with powerful springs to 
take up the jars and jolts of the road 



HOW THE CARS ARE MADE 

when the white- jacketed porters will open their doors 
in welcome to their first passengers. Above the win- 
dows the word "Pullman" in dull gold will carrry 
from coast to coast the name of their founder. 
Below the windows is the name of the car, selected 
usually with local significance in consideration of 
the lines over which that particular car will operate. 

In a corner of the great yards at a track end 
stands a little yellow car, smaller than many of our 
interurban trolley cars, the paint peeling from the 
boards that have seen the changing seasons of half 
a century. It is old number "9," not the earliest, 
but one of the early Pullmans. Perhaps there are 
nights, when the roar of the machines is stilled, that 
the ghosts of a long-past day once again walk up 
and down the narrow aisles, strangers to the age of 
steel. 



[129] 



IX 

The Operation of the Pullman Car 



CHAPTER IX 

THE OPERATION OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

ON the magic carpet of Bagdad the fortunate 
travelers of a fabulous age were transported 
to their destination, over valley, river, and moun- 
tain with a certainty and dispatch that has been 
unparalleled in the annals of passenger transporta- 
tion. But the magic carpet, despite the generous 
measure of its service, seems to have been lost to 
following generations, and only its reputation, 
doubtless somewhat amplified by the telling, remains 
to set a high standard to succeeding transportation 
enterprises. 

Service is a much-used and a much-abused word. 
It has manifold significance. It may be a personal 
thing and carry the conscientious effort of indi- 
viduals eager to do for others offices which they 
desire performed; it may be purely mechanical and 
consist only in the provision of the "ways and 
means" to secure a desired end. It may be a com- 
bination of both ; a system or organization instituted 

[ 133 ] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

for the accomplishment of a duty or work bene- 
ficial to a community. A great railroad affords such 
a service. Greater in its scope than any railroad, 
the Pullman Company provides a more vast, intri- 
cate, and complete service to the people of the 
United States, a service unequaled in all the world. 
A study of the scope and ramifications of the 
Pullman operations deserves more than passing com- 
ment; it is of interest to everyone, for everyone is 
to some degree a traveler; an actual or a potential 
Pullman patron. In preceding chapters has been 
traced the story of passenger transportation in 
America; how the first railroads offered communica- 
tion only between a few closely related cities, and 
how later the growth of the railroads brought into 
direct communication practically ever}^ village and 
metropolis throughout the land. Then came the 
time when the inadequacy of such complete but dis- 
connected service struck the imagination of a man 
who saw the endless miles of track of countless rail- 
roads bound together by a supplemental system to 
which all railroads contributed and from which they 
profited, and by which, most of all, the public would 
enjoy a service of a scope which could otherwise only 

[134] 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

be attained by an actual combination of these rail- 
roads into a single company. But the vision of the 
founder of the Pullman Company did not stop at 
the idea of a unified system. He had not only seen 
the discomfort and inconvenience of countless 
changes from one train to another at railroad junc- 
tions and the midnight gatherings on the station 
platform; he had seen in tired eyes the fatigue of 
sleeplessness; he had seen in the preponderance of 
male passengers the lack of a protection sufficient to 
permit the free travel of unescorted women; he had 
realized, and his realization ranks high with the 
thoughts of the world's innovators, that travel was 
a hardship and that it could be made a pleasure. 

With the realization constantly before him that 
the most perfect service could be given only by the 
most radically improved equipment and the widest 
extension of this company's activities, Mr. Pullman 
identified the early years of organization with a 
development of the passenger car to a degree of com- 
fort, convenience, safety, and luxury that passed 
popular comprehension. Nothing was too good for 
the Pullman car; too much money could not be 
invested in it. Hand in hand with this develop- 

[135] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



V 



ment of the mechanical side of service he developed 
its extension throughout the country, by means of 
which it might be put into the hands of the greatest 
number of people for their greater convenience. 
Never has history more completely justified a busi- 
ness that from its character must be to a certain 
extent a monopoly. Never has competition more 
> promptly yielded to unification. 

It is natural to think of the Pullman Company 
as housed in some miraculous manner in the cars 
which it operates, as a company which expends its 
restless existence in untiring travel from state to 
state. But, as a matter of fact, the vast organiza- 
tion which makes possible the movement of the 
seventy-five hundred cars which comprise the present 
equipment holds an interest secondary only to the 
actual operation of the cars themselves. 

There was a day when the run from Albany to 
Schenectady was the longest continuous railroad 
ride that a traveler might take. Today it is possible 
to travel in a Pullman car without change from 
Washington, D. C, to San Francisco, a distance of 
3,625 miles, requiring one hundred and eighteen 
hours, or approximately five day^. 

[136] 




pt^ 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

But distance is not alone characteristic of Pull- 
man service; equal attention is given to shorter 
"hauls." From Greensboro to Raleigh^ North 
Carolina, for instance, a distance of only eighty-one 
miles, Pullman sleeping cars are regularly operated. 
Here, as in many other instances, arrangements exist 
whereby the passengers may retire early in the even- 
ing while the car is at rest on a siding in the station, 
and arise at a reasonable hour in the morning. By 
such service hotel accommodations are practically 
afforded and it becomes possible for the travelers to 
have a whole day for pleasure or business at one 
place, spend a night in which a hundred or five 
hundred miles are traversed, and arrive without 
fatigue at another place the following morning. 

The hotel desk corresponds to the ticket office of 
the Pullman Company. Imagine a hotel with 
260,000 beds and 2,950 office desks, and a total 
registration of 26,000,000 people each year. This 
is what the Pullman Company does, however, and 
incidentally it does it often at a mile a minute and 
in every state in the Union. The 2,950 offices 
where Pullman berths, seats, drawing rooms or com- 
partments may be purchased include Quebec, 

[137] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Vancouver on the north; 
San Diego, El Paso, New Orleans, Key West, and 
Havana on the south; San Francisco on the west, 
and the seaboard towns of Maine on the east. 
Under normal conditions the southern limit is still 
further extended to fifty-six additional offices in the 
Republic of Mexico, as far south as Salina Cruz on 
the Gulf of Tehuantepec, and approximately two 
hundred miles from the boundary between Mexico 
and Guatemala, Central America. 

The longest distance which it is possible to travel 
with a single Pullman ticket is from Portland, 
Maine, to San Francisco, by the way of Washing- 
ton, D. C, New Orleans and Los Angeles. This 
cannot be done, however, in one sleeper, and changes 
must be made at New York and Washington. 
But a brief consideration of the perfect organ- 
ization necessary to provide such continuous pas- 
sage with berths reserved at each point of change 
by the mere purchase of a ticket at the starting point, 
grants to the Pullman Company a measure of credit 
due. In actual mileage the distance covered by this 
trip is 4,199. 

As a rule the berths in sleeping cars and seats in 
[138] 




ROBERT T. LINCOLN 
President of the Pullman Company from 1897 to 1911 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

parlor cars are on sale at the terminals of the dif' 
ferent lines, but to provide facilities at intermediate 
points where the demand is sufficient to justify it, a 
limited number of sections are assigned for sale at 
such stations and tickets may be purchased from 
them on application. At stations of less importance 
and where the demand is not sufficient to assign any 
definite space, an arrangement exists whereby the 
vacant accommodations are telegraphed by ticket 
agents or conductors from point to point in order to 
accommodate passengers taking the trains at such 
stations. It is also possible and a very common 
practice to purchase a single sleeping car ticket 
between stations a great distance apart — for 
instance, between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
and Washington, to Los Angeles, San Francisco, 
Portland, and Seattle, via any of the ordinary 
routes of travel, by sufficient notice to the ticket 
agent to enable his reserving the accommodations, 
and it is also possible to purchase under similar con- 
ditions a sleeping car ticket in Havana, Cuba, for 
a berth, section, or drawing room from Key West, 
Florida, to Seattle, Washington, a distance of 3,923 
miles, taking one hundred and thirty-three hours; 

[139] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

not, however, without change, but in connecting 
cars, giving continuous sleeping car service over 
various routes. 

During the year 19 16, 16,398,450 tickets of 
various forms were printed in Chicago and dis- 
tributed to the various ticket offices, and in addition, 
8,150,000 cash-fare tickets or checks were issued by 
conductors to travelers purchasing on the train. 

In addition to offices where tickets may be pur- 
chased, arrangements exist in many thousands of 
smaller points whereby the public may secure sleep- 
ing-car accommodations by application to the station 
agent or other representative of the railroad com- 
pany, who will arrange by telephone, telegraph, or 
letter the desired space to be called for, with a 
reasonable time at a designated point. 

In order to extend to the public every courtesy 
consistent with lawful requirements and good busi- 
ness principles, the Pullman Company endeavors to 
provide prompt and careful attention to all requests 
for refund of fares where service paid for is not 
furnished, whether through the acts of its agents or 
employees or the passenger, or due to interruption 
of traffic. 

[ho] 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

Applications of this nature are usually made to 
the company's general offices in Chicago, but when 
this is not convenient, a report made to the com- 
pany's representative in any of the important cities 
throughout the country is forwarded to the central 
offices and receives the most careful consideration. 

It would seem of interest in this connection to 
state that during the year 1916, 53,743 applications, 
amounting to $152,446.00, were received for refund 
of fares, an average of one hundred and seventy- 
nine for each working day. Of the total number 
received 48,025 were considered favorably and 
paid, indicating the liberal policy of the company 
in such matters. Regardless of the amount involved, 
great or small, it is necessary that each case be con- 
sidered on its individual merits, and the result 
determined with due regard to fairness to the pas- 
senger and the company, and not conflicting with 
legal necessities. 

Probably seventy-five per cent of these requests 
for refunds are occasioned by passengers changing 
their plans or missing their train. Most frequent is 
the reason given that the wife has packed the tickets 
in the trunk, that the cab or taxi broke down, or 

[ 141 ] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

that the last act of the theater caused unrealized 
delay. Often the tickets are lost, and not infre- 
quently they are turned in by others for refund. 

But one of the most convenient features of the 
Pullman service is the ease with which the traveler 
may reserve in advance accommodations on the 
train which he intends to take. In the ordinary 
railway coach it is a rule of "first come, first served" 
and the late arrival is often obliged to take a seat 
with a stranger. By the Pullman system, however, 
a call over the telephone or a stop at the local ticket 
office is all that is necessary to make as definite 
reservation of space as for a theater, and the traveler 
is wroth indeed when in rare instances a slip occurs 
and he finds his seat or berth has not been held for 
him and has been sold to another. 

Naturally so general a convenience has led to 
rank abuses from which the passengers invariably 
suffer. Chief among them is the practice of hotel 
clerks and porters, especially in large cities and at 
summer and winter resorts, to reserve far in advance 
all the desirable Pullman accommodations on popu- 
lar trains in the names of supposititious travelers 
whom they claim to represent, and later sell these 

[142] 




^ 6 




cq 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

tickets to the hotel guests at a premium or for the tip 
which invariably follows. 

By such practice the distribution of space is placed 
in the hands of outside parties, out of the control 
of the railroads or the Pullman Company, and the 
traveler is obliged to look to these irresponsible 
individuals for his accommodations. In addition, 
the tip or extra fee increases the cost of the ticket, 
errors in "duplicate sales" are made more frequent, 
and a critical and unfriendly feeling is created in 
the mind of the passenger who has been unable to 
secure a "lower" on early application at the ticket 
office, but was able perhaps to secure one at train 
time from the unused tickets turned in by hotel 
porters. Naturally the feeling is created that the 
railroad or Pullman agents are holding back space 
for a tip or a favorite, and "playing favorites" is 
never popular with the public. 

There are several good stories told of the action 
of the Pullman Company in cases where they "had 
the goods" on the offending hotel porters. As the 
company is in no sense required by law to make 
refund, but does so only for a convenience to its 
patrons, it is possible to refuse to make a refund if 

[143] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



the case justifies the action. At a popular watering 
place an enterprising hotel employee figured out 
that on the day following Easter a large number of 
guests would leave on a certain popular train. 
Accordingly, like the theater "scalper," he purchased 
outright a large block of tickets on this train, in fact, 
every lower on the two Pullman sleepers. For- 
tunately the local agent of the company sensed that 
there was something "rotten in the state of Den- 
mark" and made provision for two additional sleep- 
ers beyond the usual two which travel warranted. 
Being able to secure satisfactory accomm.odations 
direct from the agent the passengers failed to patron- 
ize the hotel porter's be-tipped and premiumed 
wares, and he, "stuck with the goods," tried a few 
days later to throw them back for refund on the 
Pullman Company. Their refusal cost him an even 
hundred dollars and broke up a peculiarly bad con- 
dition in that particular locality. 

Many, indeed, are the difficulties attending the 
operation of a system of such magnitude, and it is 
only by a consideration of these difficulties that the 
true wonder of a service so nearly perfect can be 
appreciated. 

[144] 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

The operation of a system of such magnitude as 
the Pullman Company necessitates an operating 
organization letter perfect in its detail. Such an 
organization cannot be built to order; it must be a 
development, the result of years of wearying experi- 
ence and costly experiment. In the introduction to 
the official book of instruction provided to car 
employees of the company, occurs, above the signa- 
ture of the general superintendent, this sentence: 
" The most important feature to be observed at all 
times is to satisfy and please passengers." It is an 
apparently simple commission, a natural expression 
of desire, but a brief investigation of the require- 
ments necessary "to satisfy and please" twenty-six 
million passengers, traveling rapidly from place to 
place, from north to south and from coast to coast, 
regardless of climate or locality, discloses a service 
and machinery for the carrying out of that service 
complete beyond the realization of the most dis- 
cerning traveler. 

To comprehend more clearly the details of this 
nation-wide service it must be considered in its two 
aspects — the material equipment which the opera- 
tion of the cars requires, and the personal service 

[145] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

afforded by the employees of the company. To give 
this service 7,500 cars of the Pullman Company are 
operated over one hundred and thirty-seven rail- 
roads, or a total of 223,489 miles of track, reaching 
practically every point in the country from which 
or to which a person might desire to travel. To 
operate these cars an army of over ten thousand car 
employees are required, while seven thousand more 
are employed to keep the cars in repair, and main- 
tain them in a clean and sanitary condition. 

The Pullman Company maintains, in addition to 
the great plant at Pullman, six repair shops situated 
at various convenient points throughout the country 
where cars are repaired and maintained in good con- 
dition. In 1916, a total of 5,1 15 cars were repaired 
at these various shops at a cost of over five million 
dollars. Only by such rigid maintenance can the 
cars be kept in the almost invariably excellent con- 
dition in which they are found by the public. 

Years ago the wearied traveler wrapped his great 
coat about him for his midnight journey. Later a 
few "sleeping" cars of primitive construction pro- 
vided sheets and blankets which were stored in a 
cupboard in the end of the car. As these were 

[146] 




Oh 




a "5 



E H 



Cl, 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

washed only at irregular intervals, it was a lucky 
passenger who found clean linen for his bed, and 
if he did not make up the bed himself, it was the 
brakeman who provided this domestic service. Nat- 
urally no one thought of undressing for the night, 
and when the Pullman car was first introduced it 
was necessary to print on the back of the tickets and 
in the employees' rules book the warning that pas- 
sengers must not retire with their boots on. 

Today the Pullman Company to provide clean 
linen nightly- for each passenger, keeps on hand 
1,858,178 sheets, which are valued at $980,553.00, 
and 1,403,354 pillow slips worth $186,475.00. In 
the twelve months ending April 27, 1916, over two 
hundred thousand sheets, valued at over one hundred 
thousand dollars, and nearly two hundred thousand 
pillow cases, valued at over twenty thousand dol- 
lars, were condemned. And during the same period 
108,492,359 pieces of linen, including both sheets 
and pillow cases were washed and ironed. In the 
matter of condemnation, it is interesting to learn 
that the slightest tear or stain is considered sufficient 
cause. These figures are staggering in their immens- 
ity, but even more amazing is the system by which 

[147] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

these articles are provided, changed, washed, 
returned in traveling hotels, at times hundreds of 
miles removed from the nearest supply station. 

In the oldtime washroom a roller towel gave satis- 
faction to travelers less particular than those of the 
present day. But now how things have changed. 
Two million seven hundred thousand towels are 
needed to supply an ever increasing demand. Three 
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was their 
cost and each year seventy million towels is the 
laundry order. When Brown has shaved in the 
men's washroom in good American style, he will 
probably wipe his razor on a towel. It is not his 
custom at home, but the traveler seems to have 
scant respect for property. That one little cut will 
destroy the towel for future service. Pullman towels 
rarely have a chance to wear out. Over a hundred 
thousand a year are condemned chiefly because of 
such usage, and, sad to relate, each year over half 
a million are " lost." A Pullman towel is a handy 
wrapping for a pair of shoes, but the annual lost 
charge amounts to nearly seventy thousand dollars. 
It is a charge that must be accepted by the company. 
It will not do to question a passenger's integrity. 

[148] 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

All told, the investment by the Pullman Com- 
pany in car linen amounts to $1,856,708.00, 
representing 6,597,714 separate pieces. And this 
is only for sleeping and parlor cars and a relatively 
small number of buffet and private cars, for the 
company no longer operates the diners. To provide 
new linen to replace the lost and condemned costs 
an annual sum of over four hundred thousand 
dollars. 

But the quantities and the cost of other articles 
which the company provides are even more impres- 
sive. These, for the most part, are expressions of 
Pullman service over and above the service itself, 
but it is unquestionably true that by such " over and 
above" service is the whole service most truly 
judged. Who would think, for instance, that in one 
year 5,819,656 women's hats were protected against 
dust by paper bags provided by the porters. And 
yet these paper bags represented a total cost of 
$14,549.00. Smokers in the same period consumed 
two million boxes of matches, and over forty-two 
million drinking cups costing nearly eighty thousand 
dollars gave the modern touch of sanitation to the 
water coolers. Soap would naturally be considered 

[149] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 



an essential part of the service, but a soap bill for 
one year of sixty thousand dollars is a large order 
for cleanliness. So, too, is the sum of $20,000 for 
hair brushes and a third of that amount for combs. 

Back in the dark ages of blissful ignorance of 
germs, railroad coaches were hallowed breeding 
places for sickness. But times have changed, and 
today it is a pretty safe remark to make that the 
Pullman car is more healthful than almost any place 
where people frequently congregate. It does not 
take many gray hairs to remember the days of sleep- 
ing cars furnished with heavy carpets tacked to 
wooden floors, of stuffy hangings, and plush 
upholstery, of fancy woodwork rife with cracks and 
crannies, and of washrooms and toilets that no 
amount of cleaning could ever maintain entirely 
innocuous. 

It is difficult to enumerate the countless little 
details that are constantly incorporated into Pull- 
man car construction. The berth light has been 
frequently changed to embody some new idea to 
improve its convenience and efficiency. The coat 
hanger, and the mirror in the upper berth are minor 
details, but their convenience is attested by their 

[150] 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

constant use by passengers. In the washrooms the 
design of the wash basins has been frequently 
altered to afford a more convenient resting place 
for the toilet articles unpacked from the traveler's 
bag. Even the location of a coat hook receives a 
consideration that would perhaps seem exaggerated 
to the casual outsider. Double curtains are now 
provided on the newer cars, one set for the lower 
and another set for the upper berth. 

Once a month a Committee on Standards, com- 
posed of the higher officials of the company, meets 
at the big plant at Pullman. On a track near the 
main entrance, stands a car in which every practical 
suggestion has been incorporated for the inspection 
of the committee. Some of these suggestions are 
quickly eliminated by their experienced verdict; 
others, possessing apparent worthiness, are passed 
and are later incorporated in the construction of 
the next cars manufactured, when the public will 
become the final judge. Many of these improve- 
ments are of a technical character, and primarily 
affect the construction of the cars; others are of a 
more directly personal nature and contribute more 
to the comfort and convenience of the traveler. All 

[151] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

that are passed by the committee serve to place 
still higher the standard that for fifty years has 
been constantly uplifted by the company. 

As a car-building material wood has had its day, 
and the concrete floor of the Pullman car is tacit 
tribute to the sanitary properties of a widely used 
material. On the floor of concrete the familiar 
green carpet is lightly stretched to be easily removed 
at the journey's end, and after the floor has been 
thoroughly scrubbed, returned after a complete 
cleansing with vacuum cleaners. Instead of insani- 
tary woodwork, the smooth surfaces of steel which 
form the interior of the car offer no lurking place 
for germs, and soap and water at frequent and 
regular intervals maintain a high degree of cleanli- 
ness. Of course, the porter with his portable vacuum 
cleaners and his dustcloth, can keep the car tidy en 
route, but the real cleaning comes when the trip is 
over and a gang of professional workers with every 
appliance to serve this end attacks the cars. Then 
not only are the carpets renovated but the prying 
nozzles of powerful vacuum cleaners suck up every 
particle of dust from seats, berths and cushions. 
Each mattress is given similar treatment, and mat- 

[152] 





At the end of its journey 
the Pullman car is thoroughly 
cleaned and disinfected. The 
first picture on this page 
shows the bedding being 
given a sun bath. The 
next, the appearance of the 
car when ready for fumi- 
gation, and the two illus- 
trations at the bottom, the 
vacuum machine at work. 




OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

tresses and pillows are hung in the open air for the 
action of that greatest of all purifiers, the sun. 
Blankets are given a similar treatment. Water 
coolers are cleaned and sterilized with steam. In 
fact, nothing that could harbor a speck of dust is 
neglected. 

The slight, acrid odor sometimes noticeable in a 
Pullman car at the beginning of a run is caused by 
the disinfectants which are liberally employed. A 
jug of disinfectant solution is a part of the equip- 
ment of every car and this is used for all car washing 
and particularly on the floors and in the toilet and 
washrooms. 

To protect still further the health of the passen- 
gers, the cars are regularly fumigated with a gas 
which kills all disease-producing bacteria. When- 
ever a car has carried a sick person it is fumigated 
as soon as it is vacated, in addition to the regular 
monthly, weekly, or other schedule of fumigation 
for various lines and terminals. In order that the 
district offices may be promptly informed as to the 
necessity of this extra fumigation, the conductor is 
required to note on his inspection report the fact 
that a sick passenger has been carried, and the car 

[153] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

is immediately taken out of service and thoroughly- 
cleaned and fumigated. Moreover, if space occu- 
pied by a sick passenger is vacated en route, it must 
not be resold until the car has reached its terminal 
and has been fumigated. 

To provide the necessary facilities for car clean- 
ing, the company maintains a cleaning force in 
two hundred and twenty-five principal yards, and, 
in addition, at one hundred and fifty-eight outlying 
points. These yards require the service of over four 
thousand cleaners. 

Stationed throughout the United States, in nearly 
every city of prominence, are six superintendents, 
thirty-nine district superintendents and thirty agents. 
These men each week make personal inspection of 
cars in operation with the sole purpose of keeping 
the service up to the highest standard. In addition, 
a corps of electrical and mechanical inspectors con- 
stantly inspect and test the cars and their devices, 
at various places, and another corps of local inspect- 
ors carefully examine every departing and every 
incoming train with particular attention to the 
appearance and deportment of the car employees and 
the apparatus for heating, lighting and water. 

[154] 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 

The Pullman Company is today the greatest single 
employer of colored labor in the world. Trained as 
a race by years of personal service in various 
capacities, and by nature adapted faithfully to 
perform their duties under circumstances which 
necessitate unfailing good nature, solicitude, and 
faithfulness, the Pullman porters occupy a unique 
place in the great fields of employment. There are 
porters who for over forty years have been employed 
by the company, and of all the porters employed, an 
army of nearly eight thousand, twenty-five per cent 
have been for over ten years in continuous service. 
The reputation of any company depends in a large 
measure on the character of its employees, and par- 
ticularly in those concerns which render a personal 
service to the general public is it necessary that the 
standards of the employees be exceptionally high. 
Such standards of personal service cannot be quickly 
developed; they can be achieved only through years 
of experience and the close personal study of the 
wide range of requirements of those who are to be 
served. 

To inspire in the car employees, conductors as 
well as porters, the ambition to satisfy and please 

U55] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

the passenger, rewards of extra pay are made for 
unblemished records of courtesy; pensions are pro- 
vided for the years that follow their retirement from 
active service; provision is made for sick relief, and 
at regular intervals increases in pay are awarded 
with respect to the number of years of continuous 
and satisfactory employment. 

One characteristic of the Pullman business that is 
peculiarly significant is the average length of service 
of the employees. In a general way it may truly 
be said that from the car porter to the highest official 
every man who enters the business enters it as a life 
work. In most lines of business there is a variety 
of concerns operating along similar lines, and it is 
a natural step for a man to pass up from one com- 
pany to another. But the unique position held by 
the Pullman Company has eliminated such a situa- 
tion, and a man entering its employ looks forward 
to a personal development in this one concern. 

During the half -century which has seen the sure 
and perfect development of this vast and compli- 
cated organization it is but natural to expect among 
the names of those who have guided its destiny many 
that must rank high in the business history of the 

[156] 




JOHN S. RUNNELLS 
President of the Pullman Company 



OPERATING THE PULLMAN CAR 



country. A glance at the list of past and present 
Directors of the company confirms the expectation. 
Here are the names of men who have found high 
places in a variety of business activities not only in 
Chicago but in other great cities. The list includes : 



George M. Pull- 
man 
John Crerar 
Norman Williams 
Robert Harris 
Thomas A. Scott 
Amos T. Hall 
C. G. Hammond 
J. P. Morgan 



Marshall Field 
J. W. Doane 
H. C. Hulbert 
O. S. A. Sprague 
Henry R. Reed 
Norman B. Ream 
William K. Van- 

derbilt 
John S. Runnells 



Frederick W. 
Vanderbilt 
W.Seward Webb 
Robert T. Lincoln 
Frank O. Lo wden 
John J. Mitchell 
Chauncey Keep 
George F. Baker 
John A. Spoor 



In this same period but three men have occupied 
the office of president: George M. Pullman, the 
founder of the company, who held office from 1867, 
the year of incorporation, until his death in 1897, 
and Robert T. Lincoln until 1911, when John S. 
Runnells, the present president, was elected. 

Pullman service has revolutionized the method of 
travel. Night has been abolished, the sense of dis- 
tance has been annihilated; fatigue has been reduced 
to a minimum. In the oldest districts of the east, 
along the valleys of western rivers, on the wide- 

[157] 



THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN CAR 

spread plains, among the remote peaks of the Rockies, 
in the deserts of the great southwest, the Pullman 
car, served by the same trained employees, furnishes 
the same comforts, and gives the same nights' repose. 
Improved each year in its mechanical construction, 
amplified in its service, better served by its attend- 
ants, it has set a high standard to the world in the 
development of railway travel, and in the fifty years 
of its development it has contributed more to the 
safety, comfort, convenience, and luxury of travelers 
than any other similar contribution that has been 
given to mankind. 



1.1581 



INDEX 



Berth construction, Mr. Pull- 
man's new and radical, 99, 
100 

Boudoir cars, the Mann, intro- 
duced in Europe, 64, 81 

Bygone Days in Chicago, its 
story of the locating of the 
Pullman shops, 91 

Chicago Tribune, the, eulogy 
of the first Pullman cars, 46 

Cleaning the cars, 152-154 

Colebrookdale Iron Works, 
cast the first rails, 4 

Construction of Pullman cars, 
123-129 

Detroit Commercial Advertiser, 
the, comments of, on the 
hotel car, 49 

Dining car, the first designed 
by Mr. Pullman, 52; he con- 
structs " The Delmonico," 
104 ; railroads adopt the, 104 ; 
its operation given up by the 
Pullman Company, 105 

Electric lighting of cars, 112- 
119; in England, 113-118 

England, introduction of Pull- 
man cars in, 61-63; reception 
of cars in, 66 ; " The Pull- 
man Limited Express," 68, 
69; electric lighting of Pull- 
man cars in, 113-118 

Erie railroad, gets the through 
Pullman service, 78, 79, 82 

Europe, the Pullman car in, 
61-69 

Flower Sleeping Car Company, 
81 

[I 



Gates Sleeping Car Company, 
competitor of the Pullman 
Company, 75 

Gauge, railway, standardized, 
48 

Heating, early, 22, 31 ; by loco- 
motive steam, 119 

Hotel cars, the first in service, 
49, 50, 52, 103; give way to 
the diner, 104 

Illinois Journal, the, comments 
on the first Pullman cars, 45 

Illinois State Register, the, de- 
scribes the new type of car, 
43, 44 

Knight car, used on eastern 
roads, 80 

Lighting, 31, 112; the Pintsch 
light, 82, 112; electric, 112- 
119 

Linen, requirements to supply 
the cars, 147-149 

Locomotive, the beginnings of 
the, 5-9; the American, 11, 
12 

London Telegraph, the, com- 
ments on the dining car, 67; 
on the introduction of elec- 
tric lighting in Pullman cars, 
115, 116 

Mann Boudoir Car Company, 
incorporated, 81 ; acquired by 
the Pullman Company, 83 

Mann, Colonel, designs a sleep- 
ing car, 63 ; his " boudoir 
cars " installed in Europe, 
64; his Company acquired by 
the Pullman Company, 83 

59] 



INDEX 



Monarch Sleeping Car Com- 
pany, competitor of the Pull- 
man Company, 84 

Napoleon's field carriage, 2, 3 

Operation of the Pullman car, 
the, 133-158 

Parlor car, or reclining chair 
car, the first, 58 

Porter, the, of the Pullman car, 
15s, 156 

Presidents and directors of the 
Pullman Company, 157 

Pullman, A. B., assistant of his 
brother, George M., 47 

Pullman car, the first actual, 
32-34; rise of the great in- 
dustry, 39-58 ; first trip of, to 
the Pacific coast, 53, 54; first 
through train from Atlantic 
to Pacific, 54-57 ; in Europe, 
61-69; shop for making, 
established in Turin, 65 ; re- 
ception of in England, 66- 
69 ; imitation of, and compe- 
tition from others, 73-85 ; ac- 
quires the Mann and Wood- 
ruff companies, 83 ; wins suits 
against the Wagner Com- 
pany, 85 ; rapid expansion of 
business, 89; locates new 
shops at Chicago, 89-93 ; 
berth construction for, 99, 
100; vestibuled trains of, 
106-111; electric lighting in, 
112-119; heating of, by loco- 
motive steam, 119; how the 
cars are made, 123-129; the 
first all-steel, I23ff. ; trucks 
for, 126; fittings, 128; oper- 
ation of the, 133-158; travel 
distances possible for, 136- 
139, 146; tickets sold yearly, 
140; linen required for, 147- 
149; other furnishings for, 
I 49- I 5 I ; cleaning, i 52- i 54 ; 
the working force, 154; the 
porters, 155 

[I 



Pullman, George M., birth and 
early years, 24, 25 ; first activ- 
ities in Chicago, 26, 27; first 
sleeping-car work, 28-32; his 
first Pullman car, 32-34; the 
second car, 40; incorporates 
the Pullman Palace Car 
Company, 47 ; his purpose, 
48; introduces the hotel car, 
49 ; the first dining car, '52 ; 
visits England, 61 ; installs 
his cars there, 62, 66-69; 
establishes shop at Turin, 65 ; 
puts vestibule trains in oper- 
ation, 84; locates new shops 
at Chicago, 89-93 ! builds 
town of Pullman, 93-95 ; his 
radical changes in berth con- 
struction, 99, 100 ; introduces 
the dining car, 103-105 ; in- 
vents the vestibule for trains, 
106-110; his vision and 
achievement, 135, 158; pres- 
ident of the company till his 
death, 157 

Pullman Palace Car Company, 
incorporated, 47; establishes 
shops in Detroit, 57 ; its busi- 
ness, 137, 140, 141 ; list of 
directors and presidents, 157 

Pullman, The Story of, quoted, 
94, 95 

Pullman, the town of, 89-95 

Railroad Gazette, the, on elec- 
tric lighting of trains, 113 

Railroad restaurants, the old- 
time service, 101-103 

Railroad transportation, birth 
of, 1-15 

Rails, the first iron, 4 

Railway Review, the, describes 
vestibuled trains, 109, no; 
on trial of electric lighting in 
English trains, 116-118 

Railways, the first in England, 
4-7 ; in America, 7-15 ; change 
gauge to suit Pullman cars, 
48 

60] 



INDEX 



Reclining chair car, or parlor 

car, the first, 58 
Repairs and repair shops, 146 

Sleeping car, the evolution of 
the, 19-3S ; the early, 22, 23, 
99; Mr. Pullman's first, 28- 
32; rise of the industry, 39- 
58 

Stagecoach, the English, 2-4, 6 

Steel, the first all-, Pullman 
cars, I23ff. 

Stephenson, George and Rob- 
ert, and the first steam en- 
gines, S, 7, 9 

Trans-Continental, the paper 
published by Pullman car 
tourists in 1870, 54 

Transportation, birth of rail- 
road, 1-15 

Trevithick, Richard, experi- 
ments with steam locomotive, 
5 



Trucks, the, used for Pullman 

cars, 126 
" Twenty minutes for dinner," 

failure of the system of, 102, 

103 

Vanderbilts, back the Wagner 

car, y6, 77, 84, 85 
VestilDule invented, 106, 107 ; 

vestibuled trains in service, 

109; trial trip, no; welcomed 

in Mexico, in 

Wagner Palace Car Company, 
competitor of the Pullman 
Company, 76-79, 84; loses to 
the Pullman Company, 85 

Wagner, Webster, founder of 
the Wagner Palace Car Com- 
pany, 76 

Woodruff sleeping car, 81 ; ac- 
quired by the Pullman Com- 
pany, 83 



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